Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - O país dos outros

Slow start and often boring. The writing style isn’t for me as it’s scattered at times, and drags with the overly descriptive paragraphs. Maybe my expectations were too high with wanting to learn more about the fight for Morocco’s independence and having that plot be more of a background story. This clearly isn’t the book for learning about this period in history.

I was also getting white savior vibes and cliche stereotypes about women, Moroccans, and Romani people/former slaves. Also very French centric/French superiority vibes. It claims to be anti colonial but all the characters (so far) except for the white woman are actually against the Revolution?! So they apparently need a white advocate now and for her to talk down to them. And the language used does not give me “oh yes the author clearly is against the colonization of Morocco” it feels the opposite.

Racist language reproduced a lot with seemingly no commentary to the contrary? An author can show us the racist and colonialist attitudes of the time in different ways, rather than constantly using racial slurs. I just found it jarring and inappropriate at times because it was not relevant to the context of the stories.

Multiple perspectives from all kinds of characters making them all feel flat and lacking depth. Just when I begin getting interested and connecting to a character, it moves on to someone else.

This is book 1 of a trilogy and I got book 2 from Netgalley before I knew it was part of a series 🙈 (I do this way too often). And I’ve heard that book 2 is better and you don’t necessarily need to have read book 1 so I’ll still try the next book and hope that I enjoy it better and maybe it’s less white savior-y.

Also one last note on this being part of a trilogy: if this book is supposed to follow Mathilde and her husband, Amine, and book 2 follows their children then why are we getting a POV from their 6 year old daughter now?! Especially so early in the book. Her chapters sound nothing like a 6 year old, and feel too mature in language and perspective.

This is purely based off what I’ve read so far (and that hasn’t been much). I found an amazing review on Goodreads that discusses some of the problematic things in better detail, and made me ultimately decide to DNF. Highly recommend checking it out as the reader is Moroccan and can speak better on the (lack of) representation and cultural nuance in the novel.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4556695385

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astronautin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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kirstym25's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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amkclaes's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

a kind of meandering, but ultimately interesting account of a French woman adjusting to life with her husband in Morocco with a backdrop of the strengthening anti colonial movement

less plot, more vibes, it kind of finds a way to remain neutral in the face of pretty upsetting, tragic, otherwise incendiary content, so it leaves a fairly bland impression. The best scenes are at the end and through the eyes of the child, in my opinion.

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patricia99's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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clellman's review against another edition

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tense slow-paced

4.0

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