Adeline
3.25 stars
Speculative mystery following Anisa, a Pakistani living as a subtitle translator in London who is invited by her boyfriend to a mysterious program that guarantees complete fluency in any language in just ten days.
So the positive aspects of this book first. I liked what the author had to say on racism, colonialism in society/relationships/culture, translation, language, cultural appropriation, privilege, memory, migration, patriarchy, misogyny etc. I won’t comment on the Muslim/Pakistani representation since I’m neither, so I’ll say to check out reviewers who can speak on that. I liked how the character looses herself more and more, both hating and loving the power giving to her yet still unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
I liked the open ending and how some things don’t have perfect answers like in real life. I liked how for most part we don’t know how the process works, so that ignorance and makes the atmosphere more sinister, augmenting the dread creeping in, making it a page turner in a frantic attempt to find the truth.
I’m not sure I found the main character compelling enough even as her faults/qualities were balanced, she sometimes grated me with her reactions and her flip flop emotions, which I don’t usually get with characters deemed unlikeable but I guess this was exacerbated by the other negative aspects of the book.
I felt sometimes her thematics wasn’t integrated well enough, like the character was more a mouthpiece for the author’s reflections than a character in her own right.
The writing was uneven, some passages felt a bit clunky, the dialogue stilted, immature, awkward. The pacing was also imperfect, time compressed for some interesting parts and too descriptive with superfluous details. I wished we had more scenes about the Center in the location itself and more gore/horror elements, but also about the act of translating/learning a language, both thematics were my favourites and I liked those parts of the books. I found other plots elements much less interesting (regarding various relationships) and sometimes baffling (like the inclusion of an ex-IOF soldier as a founder…*spoilers I get that the founders aren’t seen as positive figures but the main character reaction to that particular founder felt weird).
Overall this ended up being an underwhelming reading experience for me, great ideas with lacklustre execution.
3.25 stars
Speculative mystery following Anisa, a Pakistani living as a subtitle translator in London who is invited by her boyfriend to a mysterious program that guarantees complete fluency in any language in just ten days.
So the positive aspects of this book first. I liked what the author had to say on racism, colonialism in society/relationships/culture, translation, language, cultural appropriation, privilege, memory, migration, patriarchy, misogyny etc. I won’t comment on the Muslim/Pakistani representation since I’m neither, so I’ll say to check out reviewers who can speak on that. I liked how the character looses herself more and more, both hating and loving the power giving to her yet still unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
I liked the open ending and how some things don’t have perfect answers like in real life. I liked how for most part we don’t know how the process works, so that ignorance and makes the atmosphere more sinister, augmenting the dread creeping in, making it a page turner in a frantic attempt to find the truth.
I’m not sure I found the main character compelling enough even as her faults/qualities were balanced, she sometimes grated me with her reactions and her flip flop emotions, which I don’t usually get with characters deemed unlikeable but I guess this was exacerbated by the other negative aspects of the book.
I felt sometimes her thematics wasn’t integrated well enough, like the character was more a mouthpiece for the author’s reflections than a character in her own right.
The writing was uneven, some passages felt a bit clunky, the dialogue stilted, immature, awkward. The pacing was also imperfect, time compressed for some interesting parts and too descriptive with superfluous details. I wished we had more scenes about the Center in the location itself and more gore/horror elements, but also about the act of translating/learning a language, both thematics were my favourites and I liked those parts of the books. I found other plots elements much less interesting (regarding various relationships) and sometimes baffling (like the inclusion of an ex-IOF soldier as a founder…*spoilers I get that the founders aren’t seen as positive figures but the main character reaction to that particular founder felt weird).
Overall this ended up being an underwhelming reading experience for me, great ideas with lacklustre execution.