A review by sapphistoire
All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui

4.0

This book is utterly beautiful and haunting - in fact it's everything I wanted Rubyfruit Jungle to be. This book at its core is about growing up as a woman, in particular as a gay woman and a French-Algerian woman, and the isolation and fear that comes with it. At times it is hard to read, particularly the scenes where the authors mother return home from being abused, the constant sexual harassment of the female characters and one of the main character's friends committing suicide. However, there is still hope, and there are so many quotes that really hit home with me, including: "This place exists in a time zone of its own, inside and outside of time. We're a realm apart. We always will be. Lesbians.". This book deals with so many topics that really struck a chord with me, such as a girl's relationship with her mother and the loneliness of being a lesbian, and also how the two are linked.

My main problem with the book was the structure - it felt very disjointed and jumped forwards and backwards in time, and between countries, within one paragraph. The writing style didn't feel very natural to me either, I'm not sure if that's due to the original French text or the translation, however, I'm very interested in reading the French version and seeing how it compares.

Overall, I really adored this book and highly recommend it for anyone looking to get into autobiographical literature.