Play Book Tag discussion

This book starts in an unnamed Middle Eastern city, on the brink of civil war.

Mirroring so much of what we see in the news in recent years, the war results in a flood of refugees. Two of the refugees are Saeed and Nadia, a young couple whose relationship was just beginning as the city was thrown into chaos.

Saeed and Nadia's journey as refugees is both heart-breaking and heart-warming.

But there are two elements to this book that were just too jarring for me. (Rant alert)

First, the actual arduous journey of refugees was replaced with magical doors. Walk through the door and you're suddenly in London or San Francisco. It seemed a completely unnecessary construct. It didn't add anything to the story, and in fact diminishes the actual effort and determination refugees make to reach safety.

Second, I thought the pretend cooperative, almost socialist society that the group of refugees creates near the end of the book also doesn't match reality. Especially set in an imaginary version of (view spoiler)[ Marin. I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. But the book depicts Marin as poor and uninhabited prior to the arrival of refugees. In fact, Marin County has the 6th highest per capita income in the US (I looked it up). There ARE poor, sparsely inhabited areas in every western country, so this departure from reality was pointless and irritating to me. (hide spoiler)] The book also paints a one-sided picture of host countries. Countries that have in fact done their best to step up and recognize the dignity and rights of refugees are shown in this book to be almost completely hateful and intolerant.

Some final thoughts. According to the UN Refugee Center, in 2020 there were over 1.4 million refugees worldwide. I'm sure that number has grown with additional and expanding conflicts. I don't think a work of fiction needs to be a grim recitation of facts, but this book somehow manages to diminish the efforts of both refugees and host countries alike.

Thanks for the great review, Sue. This is one of those book that "everyone has read, but me" and your honest review has me, again, wondering if this book is for me. So many here loved and praised it but a lot of those readers have far different reading tastes than I and I am still not sure if I will ever read it 😏

I saw this book on the 'character driven' page and I couldn't understand why it was there. One of my problems with the book was that the characters made very little impression on me.

I kept hearing John Lennon's lyrics as I read; "Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do' . But it is hard to do. Hamid's doors remove borders and immigration restriction. but the people are still displaced, disconnected and struggling.

I'd be more willing to give this book the 'thought provoking' tag. Thank you for this review. You've made me think about it some more.

My review:
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I am on the side that loved this book. Prior to reading this book, I had read several nonfiction memoirs about refugee's journey. I found that the search for the doors was very similar to what refugee's actually go through to find a way out.

This book was futuristic so not entirely realistic. I didn't believe the England they presented but of course, there are elements which are correct. Living not to distant from the Bay Area, I of course recognized the differences and wasn't offended that a more wealthy area and there are indeed homeless camps in the county.

I do also see the characters as strong, especially at the beginning but with each move they shifted and evolved.

It is of course the kind of book that I think not everyone will love. I really enjoyed the writing style, but felt so much of the refugees experience was similar to what I had read and there is always a struggle on how to retain one's culture while assimilating into another.

I remember this book! I didn’t read a word of what was above before writing in, because I’m having that kind of a day. But I do remember this was the book where he did not believe in sentences. Virtually every single paragraph was a run-on sentence. Sometimes whole pages would go by without a period! I found that hard to follow, although we did this book in my book club and we found much of an interesting to talk about. The writing style it was tough for me. And those for listen to it on audio we’re completely lost. Because they rely on the sentence gaps more than anybody. I read it in print and I thought it was tough.