Waldman does a wonderful job with a difficult topic. Her story is nuanced, leaving a lot to digest throughout. There are so many motives and decisions to question and struggle over. I thought it was wonderful.

I had read and enjoyed The Submission, Amy Waldman's first novel and when the opportunity to meet her in a small group to discuss A Door in the Earth arose, I took it. This is the story of idealistic Parveen, who has just graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Anthropology and is at loose ends trying to decide what's next in her life. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, her parents emigrated to the United States when she was one year of age. Dr Gideon Crane, an ophthalmologist had traveled to Afghanistan to perform community service after being convicted of Medicare/Medicaid fraud. He built a clinic for under-served women who die at an alarming rate from complications surrounding childbearing and child birth. He wrote a memoir of his experiences in Afghanistan and Parveen has read and absorbed this book, as well as attending a lecture by Dr. Crane. Off she goes to a poor, remote village in Afghanistan to continue Dr. Crane's work. Her naivete in the beginning of the story was very hard for me to get through, and she was very self-absorbed. By the end, I found the whole story fascinating, looking at life through many different villagers' eyes. Amy Waldman was great in conversation; she is a former New York Times Reporter who was sent to Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and spent a number of years in that region of the world. It was a worthwhile read and a lovely evening.

Excellent book about finding out your hero is flawed (to say the least), also a look into the Afghani culture and how women are treated (not always great), the US Army vs. the places they are supposedly helping, and digging into your own motives for do-gooding and your understanding of self and place. A lot to unpack but through a very relatable readable novel - I highly recommend.

The end was a little undefined, and that was a bit disappointing.

Berkley educated Parveen is an idealistic American of Afghan heritage who decides to do research in a remote Afghan village that has become famous because of a memoir written by an American doctor who had spent time in the area and had funded a hospital in the village. Parveen is certain that her presence will do the locals some good, but nothing is as it seems. The doctor's memoir is mostly fabricated, the hospital is unstaffed, and Parveen's presence sets off deep and unexpected ripples. Masterfully written with a nuanced cast of characters and attention to the contradictory and layered nature of the American presence in Afghanistan, this book is a must-read.

Starts off slow but develops a hard-to-find sense of urgency towards the second half. Not everyone can do that.

Waldman tries to tap into a lot of hard hitting issues in this book about war, culture, power, perception and race. While the writing is beautiful, this book fell way short for me.

Parveen's naivety was so persistent it was almost insulting. It was like listening to an uneducated teenager tell everyone around them about how the world should be based on their limited understanding. I get that Parveen is only in college and that the way the story is told through Parveen's eyes helps to identify the complexities of these subjects but it feels as if there is an assumption that the audience is dumb.

I wouldn't want to spend ten minutes with Parveen let alone seeing her perspective for 400 pages. I think I would have preferred the book if it came from the perspective on an omnipresent narrator where Parveen was one of the characters. I think that would have worked to lift the audience up a little.

If anything this book does serve to highlight the lack of understanding from entitled people who think they can fix everything with little context or appreciation of the culture they are trying to "help".

I've never given a book one star before but this book took me forever to get through. I kept looking for excuses to anything else and I genuinely didn't enjoy it.

It was hard to swallow the naïveté of the protagonist.

I didn't love this as much as Amy Waldman's first novel, The Submission, which I was crazy for and felt didn't get as much attention as it deserved. In this one, I thought the characters were well-developed and complex, and the premise was good but I felt like it took Parveen way too long to figure out what was going on, and the whole thing kind of dragged for me. And that ending! Not my favorite.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the advanced copy!