This was an incredible emotional rollercoaster - I've been giggling, I've been shocked, I've been angry, but most of all I've been in love with this incredible mother-son-duo!

Enjoyment Actually, I expected a funny and light-hearted story. While there are jokes, the story itself certainly is not light-hearted and easy. But thanks to the beautiful prose and incredible characters, I enjoyed it so, so much!

Quality There such a seamless change of prose across the book, it fascinates me: from really blunt sentences like "fuck your mother" (this one is going to stick) to beautiful prose, jokes, and sarcasm. All this helps bearing the heavy topics that are part of this story. The only thing that annoyed me a little bit were certain exaggerations which were not that credible.

Characters The relationship between Raja and his mother Zalfa is so interesting and I liked how I got to understand it more and more. Both of them have a special place in my heart!

Plot Basically, the plot is one parentheses after the other but I didn't mind at all. Sometimes I got so lost in the substory that I was surprised we had left the main path. In the end, every substory was an important contribution to the main story, though here again some exaggerations were too much. The ending though, I looooved it!!! It was perfect 🥹

All in all, 5 stars because I'm a sucker for endings 🙈

I don’t really know what to think. I would not express that this book was an enjoyable experience, but maybe it’s needed to set up the next book in the series.

This story is about a family that is kidnapped by a community who are infected with a contagious disease. As is with all Butler stories, the “bag guys” are not always what they seem. The infected community chooses to live in isolation to attempt to keep the rest of the world “safe”, but sacrifices are needed to maintain this. Throughout the story the family (all with differing opinions) attempts to make sense of this dynamic and what that means for their present and future.

This book felt very disconnected to the previous two books. I think this book had lots of horrific things happen, but it didn’t have as strong connections to societal commentary as the other two books did. I felt like this book was veering towards descriptions of harm without moving the characters or plot along.

There were also dual perspectives of the past and present that continually switched throughout the story. While this helped build suspense, it disconnected me from the characters a bit.

I honestly just feel very confused. I didn’t read “Survivor”, so maybe I’m missing something from that story.

Also, once I realized there was a comparison between this story and Twilight, I couldn’t let that image go in my head. So maybe that’s my own fault. But I feel like there are so many similarities!

I have never experienced such a large range of emotions while crying before. I have cried tears of joy, sadness, anger, disbelief, and just from being overwhelmed with emotion. I was expecting for this to be a silly, fun time (and it definitely was in some moments), but it is so much more than that!

We meet Raja (in his late adulthood) and his mother Zalfa who lives with him. The story bounces between different periods of Raja’s life and different events of Lebanese history. Throughout the book, Raja insists that his is gullible. And by learning more about Raja’s upbringing and relationship with his mother, we learn why he has this perspective of himself.

I am endeared to Raja. Even though my life is vastly different from his, I relate to him so much. Raja was made to feel very small growing up and had adapted people pleasing to cope. But as he grew up he established unmovable, uncompromising boundaries. He very strictly follows rules and does not want to deviate from them. He is very thoughtful, intentional, and precise.

Zalfa loves to live life outside of any constraints. She lets her love lead her, regardless of any rules (which is a stark contrast to her younger adulthood). She doesn’t let anyone or anything hold her back. I would love to read a book just about Zalfa!

In a lot of ways Zalfa is Raja’s opposite and biggest compliment. Zalfa encourages Raja to give people a chance to love and support him, even if his rules seem to suggest otherwise. And Raja grounds Zalfa. They both love each other unconditionally. It was such a beautiful experience to read about their relationship. I’ve never read a story about a mother-parent relationship that is so light and silly and full of love, even in the hard moments and in the moments of conflict.

There are scenes of homophobia and sexual assault and moments of blatant boundary violation, which were really difficult to read. And although I don’t completely agree with all the characters’ perspectives of things, I did appreciate that the difficult topics were handled with care.

Rabih Alameddine is such a beautiful writer. The writing seems so casual, but it really is so skillfully and intentionally crafted. I think I could reread this story at different stages of my life and take something different away from the experience each time, and still really enjoy it.