I honestly don’t know how to review this book. There are two
story lines. One is told by Emine, a young Muslim girl in Yugoslavia. The other
line is told by her son, Bekim. Emine’s story is horrifying, but it’s
realistic. When a young man notices her on the road, he requests her hand in
marriage- basically, his family buys her with new clothing for her family,
food, jewelry, and enough money to finish building their house. In
installments, we follow her wedding and life with him through the years, including
the move to Finland. While her life was horrible, I enjoyed reading her
narrative and learning about life in her country and as a refugee in Finland.
The other narrative, her son’s, didn’t make a lot of sense
to me. On one hand, we have a realistic tale of a very lonely young gay man,
living alone with a boa constrictor, which roams the apartment freely, despite
Bekim being afraid of snakes. We see how he interacts with other men, the problems
with his father, and how he returns to Yugoslavia after a number of years. But
along with this, we see him in a club, meeting a cat who talks, wears human
clothing, smokes, and seems at one point
to be tall enough to sit at a table like a human and then next minute he’s
small enough to pick up. He’s also a total jerk (I know, many people would say
all cats are jerks, whether they can talk or not) who is a total slob as well
as emotionally abusive. My brain couldn’t manage to connect these events with
the rest of Bekim’s life. I love magical realism, but I can usually make
connections to the rest of the story with them. I don’t know if it was because
this work was translated, or if I’m just not getting it.
In the end, it was a hard story to read because the
protagonist’s lives were not easy- especially Emine’s. But there is hope even
in such conditions, and I am glad I read this.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents.
I got this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
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