One Long Overdue Review and a Wrap Up

Yes, yes, I know April is long gone :), and I am totally behind with my reviews, but unfortunately I had no time for posting these past few weeks (been happily busy with my dancing). I read one challenge book for the GLBT Challenge in April. So, here comes a short review:

The Others by Siba Al-Harez

I read this book for the GLBT Challenge and had very high hopes for it. It is a novel written by a young Saudi woman and set in the largely Shi'ite eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The novel tells the story of a young nameless woman at a girls' school who is seduced by one of her classmates. The glimpse into a culture and society so very different from my own was interesting, but the unhealthy, violent aspects of many of the relationships whether straight or gay in the novel alienated me from the story as did the odd figures of speech all over the text. The book was originally written in Arabic (it is described in the dust jacket as having been a bestseller in Arabic). I don't know Arabic, but I have an idea that it is a very poetic language full of great figures of speech. If that is true, then maybe the oddities were Arabic sayings translated all too literally into English. Anyway I found the text really difficult (as in heavy going) to read. Of course English is not my native tongue, so maybe that played a role, too. Actually it would be really interesting to hear what a native English speaker would say about the translation. All in all The Others was a dissapointment for me. I did not feel any sympathy towards the characters and I had to struggle to get to the last page.

This was my 5/12 read for the GLBT Challenge.

April Wrap Up:

Books read: 5

Books read in English:5

Books read in Finnish: 0

Finnish books read: 0

Fiction: 5

Nonfiction: 0

Books reviewed: 2

List of books I read in April:

-Al-Harez, Siba: The Others (see review above)
-Carroll, Lewis: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
-Heyer, Georgette: The Reluctant Widow
-Laski, Marghanita: Little Boy Lost
-Shields, Carol: Happenstance