I really loved this book. There isn't a traditional plot - more of the Aaliya's musings about her life, her place in it, philosophy, and her love of books. I also learned more about life in Beirut during the war years.

I stopped after two chapters. I just found it boring.

Lovely writing.

Maybe 3.5. Great language, somewhat rambling. References many g rear pieces of literature.

I wanted to love this book more than I did. I applaud so much about it. I love that there's a novel about an older, heavy, single, childless, atheist, reclusive Lebanese woman who has always refused to be like anyone or everyone else; who finds her strength, heart and soul in literature and the process of translating; whose interiority is her power. She's alone, and sometimes lonely, but she's free - free of ties and expectations. Her mind is powerful and her interests deep and explored to their ends - something not many of us manage to do. I love all this about Aaliya, even though she's a little pedantic and in some parts of the book, difficult to relate to.

Another positive: I have known nothing about Beirut and now I feel like I know a little.

On the other hand, I felt like the writer was showing off his own learning and philosophies in the book - and filling it with little quotable epigrams that are supposed to be Aaliya's - because she's a woman of great learning and deep philosophy. Some of these quotes are great, but I didn't feel Aaliya in all of it. There's character, and there's writer, and I don't think the writer removed himself entirely. I feel him there. In my own assessment of Aaliya as a character, I don't see her sitting around coming up with quotable epigrams. I just don't think she'd give a crap enough to bother. But it would be difficult to "show" her intelligence and humor otherwise, within the confines of the novel, so I get it.

I also find myself wondering about the last part of the book, in which a disaster of sorts forces Aaliya to accept help from her women neighbors. It's a trope - recluse is forced to change their ways and talk to people, and finds it's not all bad. I don't mind a good trope now and then, and I guess it works in this case. But I also found myself wanting Aaliya to stay the way she was!

This was just so, so beautifully written. Its a quiet book, but its such a lovely one. Definitely recommend.

Really enjoyed the realism of the story but to me the constant "name dropping" distracted rather than added to it. Maybe bc I'm not that well read or informed about philosophy and art.