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scheepvaart 's review for:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
by Mohsin Hamid
There are many things to like about this book: its brevity, its timely topic, its monologue format and great first-person voice. It's a joy to read.
But, there are some things that didn't quite work for me. I found the love story to be a bit too formulaic, and Erica, the female character, lacked weight. And while the cafe monologue worked in some spots, especially as a pacing mechanism at the open and close of chapters, it also struck me as awkward that this guy would be describing having sex with a complete stranger in a public place. And the shift from being a financial analyist stressing the fundamentals to a fundamentalist stressing over America's finances (a shift whose fulcrum was the 9/11 attacks), could have been better hashed out. And a more complete resolution at the end wouldn't have hurt the story either.
But, there are some things that didn't quite work for me. I found the love story to be a bit too formulaic, and Erica, the female character, lacked weight. And while the cafe monologue worked in some spots, especially as a pacing mechanism at the open and close of chapters, it also struck me as awkward that this guy would be describing having sex with a complete stranger in a public place. And the shift from being a financial analyist stressing the fundamentals to a fundamentalist stressing over America's finances (a shift whose fulcrum was the 9/11 attacks), could have been better hashed out. And a more complete resolution at the end wouldn't have hurt the story either.