Arezu is a novelist who decides to return to Marbella, Spain, the site of a summer she spent when she was 17, and endured an “affair” with a 40 year old man who was a friend of her father’s (her father who was, for the most part, absent in her life). She brings her friend, Ellie, with whom she has shared a great deal of her own emotional struggles with family and identity after crisis, as an Israeli woman who empathizes with the plight of Palestinians (whose crisis manifests as ostracism from her family).
It is hard for me to tell if the intention of the book was to evoke stream-of-consciousness writing, or if it is simply poorly edited/organized. The language is beautiful, and I think the author explores so many of the questions survivors of assault (not a spoiler- this is inferred from the age difference) ask of themselves, and the consequences their abusers/perpetrators face. I still really struggled with reading a book that is SO oriented to the experience of inner monologue, and has so little in the way of plot. Even if it wasn’t my cup of tea, I can imagine it would be good for someone else.
It is hard for me to tell if the intention of the book was to evoke stream-of-consciousness writing, or if it is simply poorly edited/organized. The language is beautiful, and I think the author explores so many of the questions survivors of assault (not a spoiler- this is inferred from the age difference) ask of themselves, and the consequences their abusers/perpetrators face. I still really struggled with reading a book that is SO oriented to the experience of inner monologue, and has so little in the way of plot. Even if it wasn’t my cup of tea, I can imagine it would be good for someone else.