Similar to how Bo Burnham makes jokes about being aware of making inappropriate jokes, hoping that the meta awareness works as a defense of continuing to make said jokes, this book hopes that the final meta writing workshop of the book will smooth over its problems. Like "I'm aware and ploughed ahead anyways, therefore it's an intentional choice and you didn't read it appropriately." Le sigh.

The main thing I disliked about this is that the Egyptian characters, even when given a first-person voice, seem to come from the American girl's perspective. For example, when the Shobrakit guy says that the revolution fizzled out because the foreign money dried up, and it left a lot of drug addicts in its wake. Is that really a common belief among lower class participants who actively participated in the revolution, like this character? Later we learn that the American girl is an autofiction of the author and the book is based on her experiences, so I guess that's why the Egyptian characters never really leave an American perspective.

Tbh I read this book to complete a reading challenge but it just strengthens my decision that I need to stop reading 2nd / 3rd gen American immigrant stories for a while. It makes me bitter that the characters often spread a colonialist and privileged American perspective but argue that because they too are damaged by that ideology they could not possibly be an active participant in it. That "hypenated identity" and passport makes you a participant, and simply being aware of it isn't enough to erase culpability. Idk what the answer is here, I just know I need to take a step back for a while. Maybe I shouldn't even read books by American authors for a few months. I'm sick of the discourse.