madgerdes's Reviews (970)

This was more fun than I expected it to be!! Very true to the OG storyline, I’m definitely going to read the other two 

I want to read this as a physical book instead! 

Emily Henry is single-handedly curing my internalized misogyny about heterosexual romance books. Funny Story had me kicking my tootsies and staying up late to finish!!!

I feel conflicted about how to review this book. Maidan’s story is heartbreaking and unimaginable in many ways. I learned a lot about Palestinian communities in Kuwait and Jordan, as well as queer arab activism. My 3 star rating is not based on Maidan’s story or his reflections on his identity—it’s based on the writing style. The writing felt flat and repetitive, with little variation in sentence structure. I wanted to keep learning about Maidan’s life but didn’t want to read the writing itself. It was strange to want to hear someone’s story while also feeling that the way the story was being told was hindering the story’s true impact. Who am I to say that someone’s memoir is stunted by their writing style? I often feel this way about memoirs when the writing style doesn’t resonate with me. Is the purpose of a memoir to tell the story of a life or for the story of a life to be heard? I don’t know! I’m glad I read this, but it would be a lie to say that the flat writing style didn’t have an impact on my engagement with the book 

This book taught me a lot about espionage and also had me consider many espionage-related moral dilemmas I’d never considered before. Interesting to hear this story from a British perspective, but I think I would have preferred a more critical lens as to why Northern Ireland was in this situation in the first place but maybe in asking too much of this book. It really was a page turner though!!