Celestial Bodies

paperback

Published Aug. 8, 2018 by Sandstone Press.

ISBN:
978-1-912240-16-6
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3 stars (6 reviews)

3 editions

I wanted to love this, but ...

3 stars

Despite my hit-and-miss relationship (mostly misses) with Booker prize winners, I really wanted to love Celestial Bodies. It's the first Omani authored novel I have read and its focus on the changes in women's lives across an extended period of time appealed to me. I think Alharthi includes three generations of women although I did struggle to maintain a good sense of how the characters were linked and in which eras they belonged because of how the story jumps around. If you prefer a linear narrative, this probably won't be the best book choice for you!

Alharthi touches on several aspects of Oman's turbulent past including colonialism, slavery, religious wars and emigration. Despite it's small village setting though, Celestial Bodies manages to feel as though it speaks for the whole country rather than a single community. I enjoyed that this is very much a book about Omani women and I …

Review of 'Celestial Bodies' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book helped solidify that I need to be more selective with what I read as audiobook. I’m giving this a 4 because I think if I’d read it as a book I’d have enjoyed it more. As it is, because this was a nonlinear story with many, many characters, I lost the thread multiple times. I like what I gathered from the story, but I definitely lost track of who was who and the relations between people. I think it would have been hard to track in a book as well, but it would have been easier to flip around and remind myself of the connections.

I loved that this was a story of multiple generations around a time of great change. The characters all react differently to “new” ways of living. Family dynamics in this kind of scenario are fascinating to read.

I don’t have anything much more …

Review of 'Celestial Bodies' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This book never came together for me. It follows several generations of a family in Oman, but does so nonsequentially. The chapters each take the point of view of a different family member throughout the saga, but they could be anywhere from early on to fairly late in the family's timeline. Because of this, I never really found myself connecting with any of the characters in any real meaningful way. Compounding this for me is that there's quite a bit of vitriol and animosity in this family, either towards each other, towards other neighbors/people, or towards themselves, and this made it hard to actually find someone to like in the bunch of kind of vaguely unlikeable people.

The writing style was great though, and I feel like the author really had a good story here, it just wasn't my thing.

Review of 'Celestial Bodies' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I couldn't have read this book if I hadn't read [b:The Five Wounds|53597769|The Five Wounds|Kirstin Valdez Quade|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612030905l/53597769.SY75.jpg|83925120] two months ago. Ignorant, cruel barbarians living empty worthless lives -- I would’ve cast it aside before page fifty. But the impact of Five Wounds lingered in me. I kept thinking back to the compassion Valdez Quade showed toward her ignorant characters; remembering their contexts and inner conflicts, the nightmare systems that produced them and that keeps them stuck; and I decided to apply that compassion and keep reading.

Unfortunately, this was no Five Wounds. There’s nothing worthwhile about any of these brutes: sure, they too are the product of a shitty religiofascist culture, and they too have been raised with idiotic superstitions and moronic traditions -- but Alharthi’s depictions are stark. She shows their nastiness and violence. She shows what passes for their inner lives, and it’s pathetic: shallow, self-absorbed, …

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3 stars