For my next reading assignment I chose to read Zaat by Sonallah Ibraham. This book was highly recommended by a former presenter in our class so I thought I would check it out. Unfortunately I found this one of the hardest books to read. Zaat is an average woman in Egypt who is in an arranged marriage. The book talks about the corruption in Egypt, but it jumps around a lot and the book is kind of hard to follow. The chapters alter between reading about Zaat and her life and different excerpts from the newspaper she works for and articles that are printed in the paper about the corruption in Egypt and it's government.
The story doesn't flow, but jumps from event to event with very little information. There is one part in the story that did talk a little more in depth. Zaat is diagnosed with breast cancer, but the way she was diagnosed was very sketchy at best. She is told she needs surgery to have them removed, but after discussing this with her husband she decides against the surgery. Being a survivor myself this part kind of lost me. There are so many things wrong with this part of the book that I'm not sure where to begin.
After reading this section of the book I completely lost interest in the book and really had to push myself to finish it. The book does have a few good points in it with dry humor, but overall I did not enjoy this book at all.
3 comments:
Linda, I read your summary on this book and was very surprised. I am disturbed that the woman did not have the surgery but was not that surprised. I hate to think of being married to the guy that would push you to not have a potentially life saving surgery for reasons that are most likely vain. I agree that there are too many things wrong with this to even begin to discuss and as a person who has suffered from and survived this I am sure it struck a nerve for you. I am happy now that I did not read this book. I don't think I would have had a very high opinion of it after that moment. Or perhaps it was just a point to be made about the culture. Either way, I would hope that this is not a common practice anywhere.
I am glad we talked about Zaat before I got into it :P If I would have read this, I would not have had much to go on with my particular topic. As for the ending.....it probably would have wrecked my whole take on the book too.
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