I have mixed feelings about this book. The writing itself was undeniably beautiful, and two narrators were very well written and believable. And yet, for the importance of the story which was being told - by which I mean, the fact that this story was highlighting a very real issue which countless women worldwide find themselves having to struggle with - there was a shallowness to the book.
The two narrators slowly unravel the hidden life of the missing Nisha, and this life is often tied in to the similar stories of other foreign maids who have come to Cyprus in order to support their families, and yet the emotional connection to the women and the hardships and discriminations and cruelties which they face was just lacking. There was no real resolution to the story, in fact the conclusion almost felt like an afterthought. It was incredibly abrupt and somehow the emotional responses of the narrators never really seemed to change - they read the same at the beginning of the book as they did at the end, when this story should have changed them deeply. There was no emotional pay off to having read this book; it felt very similar to a short news story highlighting some injustice in the world which makes you feel sad, but doesn't actually manage to connect you to the people who are suffering.
The two narrators slowly unravel the hidden life of the missing Nisha, and this life is often tied in to the similar stories of other foreign maids who have come to Cyprus in order to support their families, and yet the emotional connection to the women and the hardships and discriminations and cruelties which they face was just lacking. There was no real resolution to the story, in fact the conclusion almost felt like an afterthought. It was incredibly abrupt and somehow the emotional responses of the narrators never really seemed to change - they read the same at the beginning of the book as they did at the end, when this story should have changed them deeply. There was no emotional pay off to having read this book; it felt very similar to a short news story highlighting some injustice in the world which makes you feel sad, but doesn't actually manage to connect you to the people who are suffering.