abitbetterbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I can’t say that I “enjoyed” this book per se but it was really brilliant. I think some people may take it at face value and be upset by the ending and not think more critically about what the author was actually trying to accomplish with this work. If you are able to be confronted with your own bias and appropriately critiqued for holding a whitewashed version of what happens during a migrant crisis, then I think this book is an excellent read.
I think this book is a well-written (thought not perfectly executed) critique of the apathy of the Western world to the suffering of the global south, and points a finger straight at the idea Western exceptionalism. In picking apart this notion that some people are inherently good and want to help, and are willing to make great sacrifice in order to do so, and some people are inherently ignorant, selfish, and hurtful, El Akkad creates a story that is not really about the story or characters themselves and more about making a thematic point.
This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, it just is a thing that some people may feel differently about when approaching this book. I’d highly recommend the audio, the narrator is one of the best I’ve ever heard.
I think this book is a well-written (thought not perfectly executed) critique of the apathy of the Western world to the suffering of the global south, and points a finger straight at the idea Western exceptionalism. In picking apart this notion that some people are inherently good and want to help, and are willing to make great sacrifice in order to do so, and some people are inherently ignorant, selfish, and hurtful, El Akkad creates a story that is not really about the story or characters themselves and more about making a thematic point.
This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, it just is a thing that some people may feel differently about when approaching this book. I’d highly recommend the audio, the narrator is one of the best I’ve ever heard.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia and Death
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Classism, Racism, and Death
butlerebecca's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Really enjoyed this - I wish there was more character development and there were a few vague details I would have liked to see clarified but regardless 100% recommend this — a very quick read with some beautiful prose and an excellent message
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Death, Colonisation, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Alcoholism
blueteacup's review
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
What Strange Paradise is a challenging novel about the migrant crisis currently happening around the world, specifically tackling migrants from Southwest Asia and North Africa trying to come to Europe. El Akkad uses alternating perspectives between a Syrian child refugee and a Greek teenager to both emphasize cultural and linguistic differences and to portray themes of finding mutual understanding despite these differences.
El Akkad is expertly able to enter the mind of a child and explain what the world looks like to a young boy who is in an unfamiliar place all alone, fleeing from war and strife. He uses fine details to express Amir’s desire to go home despite having no home to go back to, without blatantly stating the obvious. He also uses a wide cast of minor characters to explore differing perspectives on migration and refugee status. From a pregnant migrant woman still desperately trying to hold onto her morals and dignity when it seems everyone else has lost theirs, to a racist colonel afraid of white replacement, El Akkad is able to delve into each character’s mind and portray three-dimensional individuals.
My only gripe with the novel was I found it a bit hard to keep track of all of the characters on the migrant boat, as many were introduced all at once with little intro.
Overall, What Strange Paradise is a very well-written and insightful novel about migration and refugees, with interesting, well-rounded characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: War
Minor: Antisemitism
bookishcori's review
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Police brutality, and Violence
Minor: War
galexy_brain's review
adventurous
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I am the hopeful, privileged reader, but I didn’t realize until the end.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, War, and Child death
Minor: Islamophobia, Abandonment, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, Pregnancy, Racism, Violence, Confinement, Blood, and Religious bigotry
laur_o's review
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: War, Death, and Child death
chloe_eags's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, and Racism
hilaryreadsbooks's review
5.0
A boy and other bodies wash up on shore, arms outstretched as if “playing at flight.” With a gasp he awakens and escapes from the media, the curious tourists, the locals, the officers—and thus begins a manhunt for the sole survivor of yet another shipwrecked group of refugees seeking solace and survival on other shores.
I am most drawn to this word: flight. Flight: described as “the body becom[ing] a lightness and the lightness a world.” Flight: the treacherous path this boat brings these refugees to the bottom of the ocean and dead onto the shore. Flight, here, is no child’s play. It’s life or death. It’s oppression or freedom. Or, simply, it’s the desire to be unchained, to walk the world with wings on one’s feet—a world with no borders and no armed guards and no violence in the act of movement. But there’s no “playing at flight” here. There is a powerful scene of severed wings on the rocks by the ocean, clipped and broken away from body. Flight is punished, dehumanized, bloodied. If you pick this book up (and please do), prepare yourself for an unexpected landing at the end that will break your heart.
I could swim in Omar El Akkad’s prose infinitely. He gives us “echo-breathing emptiness of sea” and “arpeggio spring” and how can I resist? WHAT STRANGE PARADISE has stayed in my mind, flight and lyricism and all, since I’ve read it earlier this year.
I am most drawn to this word: flight. Flight: described as “the body becom[ing] a lightness and the lightness a world.” Flight: the treacherous path this boat brings these refugees to the bottom of the ocean and dead onto the shore. Flight, here, is no child’s play. It’s life or death. It’s oppression or freedom. Or, simply, it’s the desire to be unchained, to walk the world with wings on one’s feet—a world with no borders and no armed guards and no violence in the act of movement. But there’s no “playing at flight” here. There is a powerful scene of severed wings on the rocks by the ocean, clipped and broken away from body. Flight is punished, dehumanized, bloodied. If you pick this book up (and please do), prepare yourself for an unexpected landing at the end that will break your heart.
I could swim in Omar El Akkad’s prose infinitely. He gives us “echo-breathing emptiness of sea” and “arpeggio spring” and how can I resist? WHAT STRANGE PARADISE has stayed in my mind, flight and lyricism and all, since I’ve read it earlier this year.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Trafficking
katieeyu's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Xenophobia, and Racism
daniellekat's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.75
I am speechless. This was incredible. The writing was so powerful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Trafficking, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Confinement and War