Normally literary fiction is like Not My Deal, and I was reminded of that reading most of this book. It wasn't bad, although some of the ways Alameddine has Aaliya describe herself (she says something along the lines of "I knew I would never be loved, so I strove to be respected" and there were other lines too...) where I was like "please don't make me read your fictional woman say things like this because it lets me know Too Much about how you think women work."

That being said, the last 10% (this review is obvs for the Kindle edition) of this book was really good

because we got women like coming together and being there for one another and I find that waaay more interesting than 90% of a book being navel-gazing about a life and about other books.

I was really delighted by the ending, and wish we could have had more than that.

Overall, not a bad book, just really not my cup of tea, and at least it was a worthy reminder of that!