Dust Settles North

by Deena ElGenaidi

It’s 2012, and post-revolution Egypt is sparking with political energy—but Hannah and Zain are numb.


The flight from New York to Cairo is long—longer still for two siblings on a journey to bury their mother. When they discover their father’s unforgivable betrayal, what’s left of their family crumbles.


Hannah gives up her spot at Columbia Law to remain in Egypt, where she navigates romantic entanglements and a new culture. Back in America, Zain’s self-destructive behavior begins to catch up with him, leaving him to wonder whether he’s any different from his father.


When the siblings reunite in Cairo months later, Zain is nearing rock bottom, and Hannah finds herself in the middle of the Arab Spring uprising. Together they confront shared secrets and reconcile their conservative upbringing with their new beliefs as adults. Will they heal together, or has the loss of their only bridge—their mother—set them permanently adrift?


A tender reflection on the effects of grief and loss, this deeply felt novel explores how siblings come together to mend a fractured family and, in the process, find themselves.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Historical, Egypt, Family

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2025

About the author

Deena ElGenaidi is a writer and editor in Brooklyn. Her debut novel, Dust Settles North, is forthcoming in September 2025. Deena’s writing has been published in Vulture, Insider, Nylon, Salon, Electric Literature, and more. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden and her MA in English from Villanova University.

Reviews

[Jananie (thisstoryaintover) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may be biased because I am publishing this book under my imprint, Boundless Press via Bindery Books but this book was so incredibly stunning that I knew I needed to have other people read it and love it too 💓

Read for:
✨ sibling main characters who are both nothing alike and yet so similar
✨ a beautiful exploration of the complexity of grief
✨ coming-of-age / figuring things out even as an adult
✨ Arab/Egyptian-American rep
✨ political landscape of 2012 Egypt

[Alya ( 20 comments restriction ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

UPDATE: NOW AVAILABLE
✨️ ARC REVIEW ✨️
Dust Settles North by Deena ElGenaidi
Publication date: September 30th 2025

Thoughts
I knew this would be emotional but my God I didn't know the heartache would hit this hard - the plot could easily be turned into a series and I say this with so much love for the book , if you've watched Egyptian dramas you'll understand... This was so deep and heavy that I couldn't help but feel like I was living the story with the characters... The author handled so much cultural and sensitive topics in such a profound manner, from loss to secrets, women's rights and the overall Egyptian culture.. If you take anything from this book let it be this: The choices we make in our lives really DO affect our lives!

Plot Summary
After their mother’s death, siblings Hannah and Zain travel from New York to Cairo, only to uncover a betrayal that shatters their family. Hannah stays behind, giving up law school to explore love and identity in Egypt, while Zain spirals into destructive habits back in the U.S. When they reunite months later, Hannah is caught in the Arab Spring and Zain is at his breaking point. Together, they must face painful truths about their past and decide whether grief will drive them apart or bring them back together.

My Bookstagram

Many thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the ARC

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have a lot of thoughts on the daddy situation of it all but i’ll keep those to myself

[h i n d]

really really hoping the Muslim rep is good

Edit:
I'm going to paste my comment on Jananie's YouTube video the honest truth about the book community & publishing | why i'm tired as a creator of colour for context

9:34 To me "good rep" is when we get the experience of the author/character, whatever it may be, outside of the tired cliche that is pushed by the media (white savior romance, needing to shed your values and beliefs and become liberated by western ideology and way of life, etc).

You [addressing thisstoryaintover] are absolutely right about readers of color holding authors of color at a higher standard, and I think it stems from us being starved for these stories for so long that we expect them to represent us all, even when our experiences are too diverse for that to be possible

When I posted this review, I was expressing my frustration with mainstream media's stereotypes and the 'representation' that keeps promising and disappointing.
I support Muslim/Arab authors and am glad to see them thrive in publishing

In this article, What Is 'Good' Muslim Representation in Fiction? And Who Gets to Decide?, Deena tells us what type of representation to expect from this book

[CJ Alberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for work, we love siblings navigating grief!!

[thereadingbanshee]

I went out of my comfort zone! I read contemporary literary fiction! And I liked it!

I’d first like to explain where I come from with this statement and what made me want to read this book, since it is from a genre I rarely read from and that guides my review.
I’ve been watching Jananie’s videos for a while now and always particularly loved and wanted to support the purpose behind her channel, which is talking about and centering books written by marginalized authors. It was only natural for me to get really excited about her new imprint, Boundless Press, and for that purpose to be carried forward with the major impact of publishing such books! I always want to reach out of my comfort zone because I do read for comfort, but also to learn - about me and others, about different experiences - but usually do so by reading in speculative genres. In that regard, reading Dust Settles North was a big step, but what better opportunity could I find to challenge myself?

Another point I wanted to address: I’m still new to reading and reviewing ARCs, so I don’t know how much will be modified for its release (which is Sept. 30, so tomorrow - I’m very late, I’m sorry, I was intimidated :3).

My thanks to Netgalley and BoundlessPressxBindery for the ARC of this anticipated read, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

The book is primarily a coming of age story and how that can occur in adulthood, with a specific focus on grief, religious guilt, and the experience of living between two cultures. It’s about how people and places influence who we are and what choices we make, with a revolutionary background (Arab Spring, in Egypt) and two Egyptian American siblings that are grieving their parent.
I was super excited for all this and was quite satisfied with the glimpse this story gave of the themes it took on. My critique would be that I would have liked to have a deeper, more detailed and nuanced execution of these themes. BUT, I don’t think that wasn’t the point of this book so that’s more of a me problem. The characters’ journeys and experiences with those themes were the point, and on those specific points it delivered, even if in the end the emotional pay off didn’t match my expectations (but I’ll get to that).
This reading experience was solid overall, though the first half hit harder for me than the second. I initially felt that the pacing and the characters suddenly seemed off in some way, but I didn’t see how. By the end of the book, my conclusion was that the writing just wasn’t doing what I needed to get a satisfying emotional pay off from the characters’ arcs.
I truly don’t know if the fact that I read so little in this genre impacted my expectations toward the emotional pay off or not. Maybe because I was expecting certain beats and wasn’t getting them, which led me to think that the pacing and writing probably were an issue here, and later realized so was characterization.


1. Pacing and repetitive writing.
Repetitions showed up in telling-rather-than-showing. Information was often told/shown through dialogue and then again in the narrator’s voice/the character’s thoughts, or vice-versa, which impacted the pacing and plot structure. If a subject or phrase is worded in a very similar way (or even the exact same way) in multiple scenes even as the plot progresses, there is then repetition and sometimes contradiction concerning the plot. And so it could feel incoherent at times, and that took me out of the story and played a role in making me feel disconnected from the characters.


2. Characterization: MCs’ arcs and secondary characters.
The lull I felt when reaching the midway point came from the pacing but also the MC’s arcs. There was a sort of emotional block for both characters in how they were dealing with everything in their life, including their purpose and their grief. This is clearly the point the book is making during that time, but it ended up frustrating me as the resolution for this block felt too long to come, and not really earned even though it was satisfactory. And then that was undercut by two scenes with secondary characters (and the problems that I cited above).
As we reached the end of the book, the MCs’ friends felt as if they were just placeholders to further magnify the reflections of the MCs, without adding anything to the discussion through the dialogue or their scenes. They didn’t feel like their own people at all.
This issue pervaded throughout the book, but not as strongly as within those scenes I'm mentioning. It felt appropriate when we were getting to know Hannah’s new friends with her (or since we didn’t see much of Zain’s friends, except for James). But as the plot moves on, the conversations didn’t seem realistic to me (within what we knew of the characters). Vanessa and James were really just another voice to validate either Hannah or Zain in their final reflections as the story was coming to an end. The repetitions and the telling-rather-than-showing made this on-demensional echoing worse. And from here came frustration, as I thought the secondary characters worked well for the story overall, and the final reflections from Hannah and Zain were hopeful and touching.


Even though I was less emotionally engaged by the characters in the second half of the book, I still cared and was hooked enough to finish it. And even though this story didn’t end up capitalizing on the influential themes I was interested in as much as I would have liked, I still felt for the characters and story by the end.
From the ‘getting-out-of-my-comfort-genre’ point of view, I was pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it was to read something so different. It made me think about my reading in a broader, more curious way, and I’m really glad to have read this book for that.

I’d like to add here that I loved reading some things I never see represented like this period in time (Arab Spring), religious guilt with the religion being Islam, and characters living in between two cultures and that being the drive of the book.

[roaa reads]

requested this ARC on NetGalley and i'm praying they approve it bc i was honestly sold after "post-revolution egypt." that's it, that's all i need to know to read a book.

[Lilisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The storyline had promise. Raised in the U.S. , siblings Zain and Hannah are offsprings of Egyptian immigrants. Not unlike many immigrant children, they struggle with being raised in a western environment, while being held to the standards of their family’s cultural norms - in this case a Muslim household - that they rebel against. Their mother’s death catapults the family into a downward spiral that showcases the family members’ relationships, characters, navigating life (or not), and who they want to be as people. The book is set in 2012 with flashbacks to the past. I liked the parts set in 2012 Egypt getting a sense of the political turmoil on the ground and the initial portrayal of the complex relationship of father/kids. But the complex relationship started to grate with Zain and Hannah displaying a lack of maturity not only about their relationship with their dad (they didn’t want to listen to what he tried to share) but also how they conducted their individual lives. I didn’t care for either of the sibling characters. I felt there were holes in the storyline - about the parents’ lives in Egypt and in the U.S. We didn’t get a sense of who the mom was as a person. For all these reasons and more, I felt the book wasn’t as good as it could have been and ended up being more of an average read, rather than a wow read. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Mez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you for the publisher for granting me an e-arc in exchange of an honest review.

DNF at 19%.

I was very excited about this book. I’m always excited about books written by Muslim authors so I was really looking forward to this.

I was deeply disappointed instead.

The writing was fast-paced and I was interested in where the plot was heading in terms of the political climate of Egypt and so on. I also enjoyed the descriptions of Egypt (the country itself). But the Muslim rep was not it.

Now let me clarify, the rep wasn’t bad because the characters are non practicing. I don’t care that the characters drink, smoke or have haram relationships (but the mc doing weed right before going to the mosque to pray his mom’s Janazah prayer was weird). We’re not monolithic. And doing any of those things doesn’t change the fact that the characters are Muslim.

What I didn’t like was the fact that the fmc was complaining about the religion like a broken record. She had a problem with Muslim women praying behind men, with us being buried in the ground without coffins, etc. The character made it seem like the religion/our practices are misogynistic and doesn’t even attempt to research why these practices are there in the first place. The fmc at one point says that her parents are giving her rehearsed explanations to her questions, but I’m sorry, the fmc is a full adult and her parents aren’t scholars. It’s not that hard to research.

I won’t comment on the Egyptian rep, as I’m not Egyptian. But why are almost every Muslim characters in the book narrow minded or misogynistic? Our community has flaws, but this kind of representation unfortunately is not made for own voice readers: it’s a validation of Western stereotypes against us.

I was willing to keep reading, even if it was uncomfortable in hopes that the characters learn to distinguish culture from religion and actually understand why the religion has made these norms for us. That is until I got to 19% and saw the mc insulting God. That’s unacceptable for me. I don’t care if the characters change by the end. So I’m DNF’ing.

[blok sera szwajcarskiego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received an arc from NetGalley in exchange for honest opinion, thanks!

Incredible journey of gried, self-rediscovery and siblingly relationship, framed in post-revolution Egypt setting. ElGenaidi has this lightness to her writing that makes the text extremely pleasant to read. She creates and treats her characters with love, reflecting the reality as naturally as it is possible. "Dust Settles North" approaches each topic with a great depth. I have really enjoyed my time reading it.

[May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 2012, amidst the Egyptian revolution, the story navigates through two diaspora Egyptian siblings - Hannah and Zain's grief over the loss of their mother. It is set as the third person narrative of the siblings and their life. It deals well with the confusing identity of diaspora kids and how they feel. I liked that the characters weren't perfect and are just learning to be better. I understand their grief but it was more often told than shown. I did expect more from the mother's perspective which would have made the book more interesting.

[Lydia Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Oof - the first half of this one definitely hit me in the feels. Such an accurate depiction of what it's like to go through the loss of a parent and what grieving can look like for some. However, despite the fact that I loved how well this book was written, everyone sucked! The character's flaws made them kinda unlikeable - Zain's wishy washy personality and Hannah's naivite gave me moments where I had to ask myself "seriously?" Deena ElGenaldi also wrote this in the perspective of first-gen Egyptian-American siblings, who because of this, had unique struggles with cultural identity that we might not read about with characters who immigrate to the US/Canada/UK.

I guess my only real critique of this book is that, at times, the second half of it felt like I was reading a YA novel with all of Hannah's relationship drama (which we didn't even get a concrete ending on). It also just felt a bit rushed compared to the first half of the book.

[kitkat · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5

An impressive debut! I loved Hannah and Zain, and all their bad decisions. My only gripe was that the dialogue and writing style felt simplistic and over-explanatory. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to what this author writes next.

[Sara☽༊‧₊˚ (semi-hiatus)]

jananie (thisstoryaintover) is one of my favorite booktubers of all time, her authenticity and devotion to promoting more diverse and underrated literature in an industry that refuses to stop publishing carbon copies of the same ridiculously mediocre and incredibly white books are so inspiring, you best believe I'm reading anything she publishes under her imprint and you should too.

[Michelle Reads and Vlogs (YouTube) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dust Settles North follows siblings Hannah and Zain following the death of their mother. They fly from the States to Cairo for the traditional Egyptian funeral that their mother would have wanted. This story follows the brother and sister in a dual perspective in the days, weeks, and months that follow, showing how they each live life with their grief and how it affects the decisions that they make.

This book is a masterclass in showing the range of ways that humans deal with grief, along with exploring what it means to be Egyptian-American, culturally, socially, and religiously. The dual perspective was really well written, helping us to understand the family dynamic in depth. The characters felt real. The author did a great job showing the characters imperfections, and having conversations that show what it is to be 'perfect' in the eyes of others, and the importance of getting to know the real person behind first impressions to find this out.

I would recommend Dust Settles North to those who enough character focused books, set between different countries, exploration of grief and family dynamics.

Thank you so much to NetGalleyUK and Bindery Books for an eARC of Dust Settles North in return for an honest review.

[fede · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC kindly sent by the publisher.
All opinions are my own!

What are we if not the product of our parents' lies? After flying to Cairo to bury their mother, Hannah and Zain are confronted with the heaviness of Yasmeen’s absence and all the secrets that were left behind. The two siblings slowly navigate their grief and try to find their life path in 2012 post-revolution Egypt. I loved the premise and I was expecting to be deeply moved by this story- sadly, that did not happen. The first half of the novel is very slow-paced, it’s too descriptive, especially when it comes to obvious things that can be inferred from the context or details that aren’t important. I liked how the personal inner turmoil and the political atmosphere got intertwined, but sadly I didn’t feel a strong connection to the characters, so the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped. Overall, great premise, a lot of interesting themes, but I wish the characters’ dynamics were explored more in depth.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really interested in the setting of this story, especially since I know shamefully little about the political situation in Egypt at that time. Also thought the exploration of grief and healing was well done. However I did have some issues with the characters, especially Zain, because he was just kind of annoying.
Also, at times, the writing style threw me a bit off. There were conversations written from two POVs where every “chapter” was about half a page and then it already switched again, didn’t love that. Sometimes also the changes between scenes were really abrupt, insofar that I didn’t even notice that one scene or conversation was over and suddenly we were somewhere completely different.
Overall I think it was an interesting read but I wanted a bit more out of it.

[cecilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read at least three literary fiction books this year that deal with siblings navigating grief, and this was by far my favourite one.
The book is mainly set in 2012 Egypt (a setting I had never read about) and the two main characters deal with the challenges of the political climate of the time while navigating grief, religion + societal expectations and their cultural identities as Egyptian Americans. The characters are messy and complicated, deal with so many different things at once and just felt so real to me. I loved reading about Hannah’s and Zain’s relationship to one another as somewhat estranged siblings who find their way back to one another, as well as the individual journeys that they go on. Overall, I just loved this book a lot, it made me feel and think and hope, and I thought the ending of the book was perfect.

I’ll be looking forward to reading whatever Deena ElGenaidi writes next.

Thank you to Boundless Press via Bindery Books and NetGalley for an advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lately, I’ve been diving deep into Literary Fiction, but I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with how many titles seem to center exclusively on white feminism. Dust Settles North was a refreshing shift. Deena ElGenaida explores alot of themes through the lens of two siblings, Hannah and Zain, as they navigate grief, identity, and personal growth following the death of their mother.

Hannah’s journey, staying in Egypt and reconnecting with her family’s roots, was especially compelling. Her chapters resonated with me the most, offering a look at heritage, womanhood, and belonging. Zain, meanwhile, wrestles with relationship drama and a toxic work environment. While his storyline had depth, I found myself hesitant to fully embrace him, especially in the first half of the book. His decisions didn’t always sit right with me. That said, the sibling dynamic between Hannah and Zain was beautifully written. I’m a sucker for sibling stories, and theirs hit all the right emotional notes.

This isn’t a book packed with twists and turns, but that’s part of its charm. Sometimes you need a story that’s steady and character-driven. Dust Settles North delivers exactly that. I came away not only moved by the narrative but also inspired to learn more about Egypt and the women’s movements.

All in all, a quietly powerful novel that centers characters, grief and sibling dynamics!

[Chelsea]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Dust Settles North by Deena ElGenaidi is a third person multi-POV multi-timeline literary novel following two siblings as they navigate life after their mother’s death. Zain and Hannah’s mother passes away while the two are still in their twenties and not only have to reconcile with losing her at a young age, they also have to figure out who they are now and the shock of learning their father had been having an affair. Hannah goes to Egypt to be closer to their parents’ homeland and gets involved in the women's liberation movement of the 2010s while Zain stays in America and both will have to grow and change in their new worlds.

A big part of this book is centered on assimilation and the feeling of being locked out of your own culture because of the choices your parents made. This resonated with me a lot because Zain and Hannah’s experience is my father’s experience as a child. Zain and Hannah don’t know Arabic nearly as well as they could (partly their own fault due to their insistence that they didn’t need Arabic lessons as children) and parts of their parents culture very clearly embedded themselves inside of them but other parts just bounced off or didn’t fully form because he was lacking the context. The shame around them not being ‘good Muslims’ and being more assimilated into American culture plays into all of this because that shame keeps them from feeling like they belong in Egypt or America.

Between Zain and Hannah, the bulk of the POV chapters, I think Hannah was my favorite because she is not only exploring her parents’ culture by literally going to Egypt after the funeral, but she’s finding out who she is as an Egyptian-American who spends a lot of time with other Egyptian-Americans living in Egypt. She’s learning what her privileges are and also what she just doesn’t know. She’s figured out her perceptions of Egyptian culture and the Egyptian people as someone who is both part of the in group and the out group are based on assumptions, even if they might be informed ones. Hannah’s change is a complicated one that is so hard to articulate to people who don’t go through it because to start to do so is to start to grieve what you lost and who you could have been as well as to accept how the culture you grew up in impacts you.

Zain’s POV involves him starting an affair with his boss and the fallout when he slacks off at work and then confesses the affair to his girlfriend. It’s one of those things where the reader is not expected to forgive him, but merely to understand why some people do ruin their romantic relationships and the ways in which they justify it to themselves until they finally have to face the fact that they need to change if they want to actually be happy. I think his arc will frustrate or turn off a lot of readers and I can’t say he’s my favorite character ever, but I completely bought into his arc and how everything led to him slowly thinking more and more about religion and if he wanted to turn back to Islam or not with no clearcut answers. I did feel for him when he started to think he was just like his father in the middle of feeling betrayed by his father’s actions.

Content warning for depictions of cheating and underage drinking

I would recommend this to fans of works exploring assimilation and readers of literary works that deal with the impact of being the child of immigrants

[Booknblues · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still getting my head around Dust Settles North and I have so many divergent opinions about this book. The essence of the book is about two post-adolescent, twenty-something Egyptian-American siblings who are working through their grief of their mother's death. They are both going off the deep-end in entirely different directions, Hannah, who remains in Egypt unexpectedly and Zain in Philadelphia trying to move forward his career in journalism.

The time is 2012, Mubarak has been displaced and Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Things are not going well, but Hannah who was ready to attend Columbia Law School in the fall decides to stay in Egypt after her mother's funeral.

There were parts of this book which were so painful that I nearly put it down:

Now, watching her dad rush them through customs, collect their bags, and usher them outside to hail a taxi, she felt nothing⁠—numb, a body detached from a soul.....She gasped. Her lungs felt like they were collapsing, being crushed under the weight of grief. She hoped her dad and brother didn’t notice. She wanted to disappear, to stop existing, for this moment to end altogether. She wanted something drastic to happen⁠—perhaps a sandstorm. They were in Egypt, after all. A rush of wind enveloping only her, pulling her away from here until she became part of the sand herself."

And then there were parts of this book which were so uncomfortable that I almost put it down. All of the crazy, misguided things which a twenty-something can do in the times of crisis are there. Throw in a culture which is at the sizzling point to someone who barely understands it and things are bound to happen with Hannah.

But don't let Zain off the hook just because he remains in America his mistakes are as great or greater than his sister.

The book is not entirely fluid. It moves from Hannah to Zain, back in forth shifting time. I'm not sure this always worked at least it didn't for me.

I appreciate that it gave me a better picture of Egypt during this time and how an American, despite background and ethnicity manages the culture.

While I experienced some discomfort reading the book, I appreciate that it took Deena ElGenaidi 9 years to write and that she dedicated the book to her cat saying:
"Most of all, thank you to my cat Sasha. Without you, I could not have survived this long, and I can’t imagine my life without you in it."

[Hannah Wilkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

For a debut novel, this author is certainly showing potential in the maturity of the topics addressed in this book. ElGenaidi did a wonderful job of setting the backdrop to mid-revolution Egypt, 2012, the tensions of having strictly imposed religious ideologies, yet being surrounded by those with more freedoms, the being in-between two cultures, not really slotting into either, dealing with grief and forgiveness. All of this was explored really well and I really connected to those aspects of the story the most.

Where I felt that this novel lacked was in the coming of age part. Hannah and Zain are still relatively young, they are trying to navigate a turning point in their lives, and are finding that all the secrets they've kept may now disrespect their mother in her death. Whilst this all wound its way into the above topics well, it just felt like too much had been taken on, of course having the characters making mistakes and being imperfect while struggling through a traumatic time is apt, however this being the vast majority of the novel, up until perhaps the last 10-15% did become slightly jarring. Perhaps more complexities in their behaviours could have helped this, however I do think this was the result of trying to cover too much in a limited amount of pages.

Despite that, I do think this author is promising and I loved the insight into political history and other cultural ideas to shape my view of the world around me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bindery Books for the arc of this book, it has been a pleasure to read and review!

[Claneessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could’ve been a very good book. Honestly, it basically has everything I love in a fiction: interesting characters, family dynamics, political and historical issues… BUT the constant Islam bashing really put me off. And it’s coming from someone who usually doesn’t have a problem with reading from other perspectives, because I know some people experience religious trauma, and I think they’re allowed to speak about it freely. However, when I found out the author was Muslim, I was flabbergasted. What do you mean, as a Muslim, you’re writing all these things that non Muslims could use against Islam? Especially as an American Muslim, you should know better that our reputation in the West is not the best, and I’m sorry but as an author you have a responsibility. What you write matters, and you could easily write about Zain and Hannah being lost in their culture, having a hard time believing in God, or not being « good » Muslims, without making Islam sound like the worst religion in the world. I’m so tired of this honestly. I know there’s a lot of people who use Islam to weaponise fear and oppression, but that is not what Islam essentially is. Anyways. Very disappointed, especially after reading an article where the author of this book is saying that « we need more Muslim representation », and she ends up giving us the worst representation possible.
(Also, can we stop calling a man who goes to Friday prayer a « very religious person » ? That’s literally the bare minimum especially for a man living in a Muslim country. ANYWAYS)

[Ridhima · Rating 3 out of 5]

A promising debut, set in post-revolution Egypt (2012), Deena ElGenaidi's Dust Settles North is about two siblings and their resulting varied reactions after the death of their mother.

Told with alternating third person POV, with the occasional flashback, the author does a decent job portraying the Egyptian life a decade ago, especially how it differed for men vs women, locals vs foreigners. Each sibling is battling their own demons, while struggling to adjust to the new reality without their mother. I enjoyed seeing the world (both Egypt and abroad) through the eyes of these young adults.
On the other hand, I would have appreciated more insight into the mysterious early life of the mother, as well as more depth to some of the recurring characters in the novel. While I could feel the inner turmoil of the siblings, I was expecting something deeper and more visceral that would move me, which didn't really end up happening.
Still, this did well for a debut and ultimately, any book which educates me on something I didn't already know about is a win.

tw: book contains mentions of parental death, infidelity, drug/alcohol abuse

Thank you to the author and Colored Pages Book Tours for sending me a copy as part of their book tour!

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!!

Firstly, wow that's a gorgeous cover!!

Besides that, the novel itself was really powerful. Deena did a really fantastic job expressing grief and how it is such a universal but unique experience at the same time. The storytelling between the siblings' points of views was also done really well, showcasing how they were dealing with their mom's death and dad's secrets in different ways. I loved how we deep dove into the characters' ideas of what a family should look like vs what their family is actually like (and the family dynamics were very realistic and comparable to mine).

The novel also is about the first-gen American experience, and how the characters never felt American nor Egyptian enough in either country, never feeling like they belong anywhere. It was inspiring seeing them try to find their own ways to connect to their background as well as find their own purposes. The ending felt slightly rushed and I honestly wished I could have kept reading their story!

[PlantLady Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll start by saying thank you so much to Bindery Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review 💚

I was really glad when I got the ARC since the premise sounded fascinating.
I especially enjoyed the story and following the lives of Zain and Hannah.
I do think this book would deserve a bit of work since you find a lot of repetition and there's a mix of way more showing than telling that made me question why so much time was spent on some scenes and barely a paragraph on others.
I will definitely follow this authors journey as this debut shows a lot of promise for a great voice in storytelling 💚💚

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ wow, this was incredible. I loved how complex the characters were especially in the ways they navigated their grief. I also really liked the pacing of the book in “present day” & the chapters of flashbacks. I was very interested by the political side of what was going on Egypt & seeing how it parallels so many struggles we are still facing in 2025 (especially woman & women of color in America). I relate to both Hannah and Zain in completely different ways, and I could not put this book down. I got to the last page ready for more, I could’ve easily read 100 more pages of their lives (I did love how it left their future open) 😭

[Athena A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5] That was a lot to take in! I thought the organization of the book/story was done excellently, especially in highlighting both siblings and allowing room for flashbacks to past memories between Egypt & the U.S.. Heartbreaking but I'm glad to see how these siblings bonded. Just struggled with the overwhelming presence of grief-generating events; I think some other subplots could have been developed a little more (like the protests or certain relationships).

Thank you NetGalley and Bindery Books for the ARC. Can't wait to see more from this author & publishing imprint!

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

touching, eye-opening and honestly incredibly beautiful from beginning till end.

the story has a dual pov of brother and sister going through changes happening around them and inside them too. it shows the different versions of guilt, the hypocrisy of this world, how starved people can be for connection without even realizing it and how separated one can feel when it comes to religion.

amazing storytelling!

thank you netgalley and bindery books for this arc

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

this might not be for everyone— there’s not much moving the plot. It’s definitely more of a character study between siblings and families. I really could’ve used maybe 50-100 more pages… wish we had more of the mom’s POV :( thank you to NetGalley and Bindery for a copy of the e-book in exchange for an honest review!!