Elizabeth Searle

All of these characters are SO UNLIKABLE. First, our two protagonists:
Mother: Indecisive, guilt-ridden, overthinking helicopter-mom
Son: Self-centered borderline-sexual-predator

So, um, that's a problem.

Then there's the issue that all of the foreign characters -- One and Rakeen, in particular -- speak like such stereotypes (linguistically, I mean), and not at ALL like people who are speaking a second (or third) language. For example, neither ever pauses to remember how to say something in English, or asks for a word; they just plow ahead with their broken speech, in the MOST STEREOTYPICAL WAYS.

As if that weren't racist enough, the whole story is thoroughly white-washed. I mean, the plot itself is centered around an Arabic family and their Vietnamese indentured servant (the book only uses the word "slave" once, so I'm hesitant to use it here) -- yet it's told from the perspectives of a pair of white folk who stumble into their drama and get tangled up in it? I mean, REALLY PEOPLE.

The book also spends about 3/4 of the time in the protagonists heads, rehashing and overthinking EVERYTHING. For all that it tackles a boat-load of issues (terrorism, racism, slavery, adultery, LGBTQ, coming-of-age, etc.), I actually feel that it could be SHORTER than its 217 pages, just because of all the repetetive thoughts that could be cut. I mean, the fifteenth time the mother thinks about how her husband has maybe had a one-night stand, and angsts over whether that justifies her own flirtations with another PTA mom, and does that make her a lesbian, and should she stay in her sexless marriage since it's really her own fault it's sexless, and BLAH BLAH BLAH... I kind of think I get the point? Same goes for the son going on and on about how he's going to save One and she'll be so grateful she'll have sex with him. And then he gets a boner. Practically every page, he gets a boner. I get that 15-year-old boys are aroused by EVERYTHING, but COME ON. And for all this inner exposition, is there any change in their decisions at the end? NOPE.

Basically, the story would've been about 897% more interesting if told from Rakeen's point of view -- being ostracized in post-9/11 America, his mother not understanding that you can't just lock your servants in the basement in this country (not to mention not pay them), difficulties being expected to be the "man of the house" with his father's illness, emotions over falling for the Vietnamese maid who isn't Muslem and so cannot be touched, trying to convince her to fight for her own rights, trying to convince his mother to move them to France... and so many other issues that are JUST NOT EXPLORED.

Y'know what? Cut the middle-class-white family entirely. Focus the book on the actual plot and conflict. Plzkthx.… (lisätietoja)