RaveThe Guardian (UK)... a beautiful, well paced, enraging, funny and heartbreaking book ... Mina is a thoughtful narrator, and the book interweaves her story with those of the unnamed writer and the refugees she encounters, making the novel a rolling triptych of sorts ... Sumaiya’s tale is representative of Alameddine’s portrayal of the refugee stories: plain, unflinching and deeply observed, without being sentimental or cloying ... doesn’t so much switch between emotional registers as occupy all of them at once – humour, grief, anger, melancholy, love of every stripe. Mina is a wise, quiet and perceptive woman, and her keen observations give the novel dynamism and life. Her status as narrator also underlines the unnamed writer’s lack of omniscience, an effect that attains great power by the book’s last chapter, when Mina and her wife, Francine, drive the core themes of the novel home. Refreshingly, Mina’s transness is just one of many elements in her story – there’s no cheesy transition narrative. (Though Emma, who is also trans, is unfortunately rather one-note and definitely one of the weaker characters).
