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Sep 14, 2020wcbind421 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I expected something with more meat on its bones from a Booker Prize finalist and a N.Y. Times "10 best books". Yes, it's gorgeously written with fine cadences and long run-on sentences; it explores the plight of refugees and the nuts-and-bolts of how they scrape by but, in the end, what's it really about? Saeed and Nadia, 2 lovers, leave home and family and escape to the West in a series of hops from the un-named homeland (Beirut? Damascus? Baghdad? Kabul?) first to Mykonos, then London and finally California's coast. They lost their families, their culture and ultimately each other but what did either of them achieve? Mohsin doesn't tell us.