From the first page you know that this is going to be a dispiriting book. It is about a man and his family who have to flee Syria and make their way to England. On the way he takes on a lone boy to replace his dead son. His wife is blind and very depressed. I kept leaving the book and coming back to it as it was our reading group book. Chris gave up and went for something lighter. He said that as you know early on that they have made it to the UK, what's the point of reading further.
This was a criticism of the book by most readers, that it jumped around in place and time. O said that 'the structure was irritating'.
It was a traumatic story, certainly not escapism that most of us want inthese days of Covid.
L found the bees interesting. They were, but not as someone said 'an allegory for life'. Another comment was that the book was about blindness, Afra's psychological blindness caused by the death of her son, and Nuri's emotional blindness due to the traumatic shocks that he has seen. Also throughout the book he was seeing things that didn't exist, like the little boy Mohammed.
M did like the characters. were they beleivable? Hard to say with Nuri seeing these young boys accompanying them that were fictitious
We couldn't understand how he kept that large amount of money safe during all his travels and the rough areas he was in. Also how did he get so much money, and what currency was it?
At the end it all came rather fast as they got via the smuggler Italian passorts that meant that they were able to travel throughout the EU untroubled, and flew quickly from Greece to England.
M says that she has recommended it to her otehr book group, but doesn't know that was such a good idea. It was a book selected for us by the librarian, not one we chose.
However the marks averaged at 7.
