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!