A review by sharkybookshelf
The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

3.0

Anisa dreams of translating “great works of literature” instead of writing subtitles for Bollywood films - a dream which feels unachievable, especially in the face of her boyfriend Adam’s remarkable ability to acquire new languages, until he reveals his secret…

This was an interesting concept - the ability to acquire an entire language to the level of native fluency (which of course means fully understanding the associated culture) in an absurdly short space of time is a fascinating idea to explore. But the story took a strange turn towards the end which I just couldn’t quite get behind - things got weird and pivoted away from what I was most interested in (the actual learning of languages and everything that entails).

There were some interesting observations around friendship, belonging and insidious racism. I particularly enjoyed Anisa’s reflections around our relationship to the different languages we speak and our relationship to ourselves when speaking those different languages (themes which are basically catnip to me). But it was not enough to carry the book.

I found the chatty tone rather painful to read, particularly the inclusion of verbal tics that just don’t work when written (listening to the audiobook might make this more tolerable, but I cannot confirm). I eventually understood the reason for it, but that didn’t make up for the irritation.

An intriguing story of the power of languages, gatekeeping of knowledge and friendship, that takes an odd turn and doesn’t quite live up to its potential.