A review by gi_gi_g
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

challenging informative reflective slow-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? No

3.5

TL;DR : book was very engrossing at the beginning but fell into a lot of political and semi-psychological stuff at the end that felt unrelated and disjointed. Ending is very unclear. 

This book started off strong, but I had a lot of trouble following the perspective changes as the book advanced aka I didn’t know who was talking at the moment, so I had to go back and reread a lot. Also the romance of the main characters of the present (90s) was really hard to buy for me. The female lead Isabel seems to just completely give up her supposed project in order to pursue the much older Omar, which just seemed flighty, not deep and t romantic. Especially as she is described as previously divorcing “bc it made sense” or something similar, she doesn’t really seem like the type who would just throw everything to the wind for a man.
Her mothers death also was barely addressed and in fact simply leads to her being “comforted” by Omar and getting pregnant with his baby. Also the whole part where he had an affair with her mother? Bizarre and didn’t really add a single thing to the plot. Maybe I just missed some kind of symbolism but mostly it was just icky for me. Also the ending of the book was totally abrupt and I’m not sure what happened… it seems like maybe Omar died just like his great uncle had due to his political activity?
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