I started my year off so well with my books, high ratings all round, but unfortunately I seem to have lost it before January’s even over 😅 This one was partly my own fault because even though I wasn’t a massive fan of the Yacoubian Building, I thought Friendly Fire by Alaa al-Aswany might be better… I pretty much found it as inscrutable as TYB. I think it’s meant to be a satirical depiction of Egyptian society, emphasising issues such as corruption to an almost cartoonish level. Some of the stories, like Kitchen Boy, were quite entertaining while reading but not very memorable afterwards.

I think I might try and find something else for Egypt for StoryGraph’s 2025 Read the World challenge, as well as a few other countries. I’ve read almost 8 now (speed running it) but the last few have been disappointing 😭