Negative Positive
Title: Good Book
Review: The Swallows of Kabul is an interesting story of the entanglement of the lives of two couples in Kabul. The first three-fourths of the book follow the two husbands closely as they coincidentally run into each other but never meet (somewhat like in Ulysses). Kabul is impoverished and the story takes place during Taliban rule and after the war with the Russians. All four of the characters struggle with living in Taliban ran Kabul and the question of existence develops into a poignant theme. The last fourth of the book moves to target the wives more and here the story became very predictable and I quickly began to lose interest. Khadra does have a rather peculiar writing style (or perhaps a result of the translation) where I found myself often feeling I was reading a play rather than a novel.
Is the review positive or negative? 