Well, where do I start. I have some feelings about this one.
Lets start with the good shall we?
It started off really strong. I really liked the premise of Amir, an Iranian muslim boy being blackmailed by a guy who was going to out him to his parents, running away and ending up in Rome. I also really like the dual timeline between them sat in the customs office talking back over exactly what happened. I really liked Soraya and Roya's narratives.
However thats where the good ends.
The bad?
As has been pointed out by several muslim reviewers, Amir is not religious. This book has been marketed as a muslim gay guy, when he explicitly says in the text that he is not religious. The book could merely have talked about his iranian culture vs his homosexuality, and instead I feel it used the muslim faith as a bit of a buzz word.
I found most of the book slightly too easy to be believable. Once he got to Italy everything fell into place, he just found somewhere to live, was accepted by a group of gay guys ... it was all just a little too easy.
And also. The nipple thing? Totally totally not needed.
Lets start with the good shall we?
It started off really strong. I really liked the premise of Amir, an Iranian muslim boy being blackmailed by a guy who was going to out him to his parents, running away and ending up in Rome. I also really like the dual timeline between them sat in the customs office talking back over exactly what happened. I really liked Soraya and Roya's narratives.
However thats where the good ends.
The bad?
As has been pointed out by several muslim reviewers, Amir is not religious. This book has been marketed as a muslim gay guy, when he explicitly says in the text that he is not religious. The book could merely have talked about his iranian culture vs his homosexuality, and instead I feel it used the muslim faith as a bit of a buzz word.
I found most of the book slightly too easy to be believable. Once he got to Italy everything fell into place, he just found somewhere to live, was accepted by a group of gay guys ... it was all just a little too easy.
And also. The nipple thing? Totally totally not needed.