2026 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir.

Pages: 320 pages

Length: 1 month (February)

Participants: SarahKat, Beth

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

Hi Beth! I'm going to start this one tomorrow

Hi! It will be mid-month till I'll get to this one. I have some other books to read that are due back at the library that I want to finish first.

I have not read this author before. It looks like she only has one other book in English.
I picked it for the Africa Shelf Awareness which I'm using to fill out my personal To Boldly Go challenge from a few years ago. I was happy to find an actual novel for a tiny island nation considering a lot of the easy-to-find material for those is just travel guides.

Through Part 1: (view spoiler)[ This is easier to read than I thought it would be after reading some of the comments on the couplets and how there are no sentence stops. It doesn't bother me much at all; I just read as if the commas are periods.
It is a little hard to stay focused on though. Eel's thoughts are very meandering and it sort of makes my mind wander too. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I like her comment about liking stories that are "eel-shaped."
Why does she refer to her father as the All-Knowing? At first I thought she was talking about God or some higher power but it seems he's just... her dad. (hide spoiler)]

Through Part 2 (Voracious, My Love): (view spoiler)[Oh how quickly obsession and love sets in and changes Eel's entire personality in one go. Same as with many teenage dalliances I guess.

I realized when reading my last comment that it felt like I hadn't seen much about her father All-knowing recently so I counted instances of that name. In part 1, which is 65 pages, she talks about her father 131 times. In part 2, which is 50 pages, she talks about him 24 times.

I know this is just a normal thing to happen, growing a little distant from your parents and giving yourself fully to a romantic relationship. But it makes me sad as a parent of an almost-teenager. Oof. (hide spoiler)]

Through Part 3: (view spoiler)[Well I saw that coming. Eel ends up pregnant with Voracious' kid and *shockingly* Voracious is cheating on her. Or cheating WITH her, but I guess the result is the same. He's a scumbag. I wonder if he started things up with Eel after Bream or before? Seems like it would have been before since he made that "schedule" for her, but it's odd that Bream would already be engaged to him.

I thought Bream was kind of a cute name until I realized it's a type of fish.

Rattler's situation with Cobra was sad too. Wow men are disgusting. She wouldn't sleep with him so he completely denied ever even having a relationship with her. (hide spoiler)]

Through Part 4: Unrelenting Scandal: (view spoiler)[So not only was Voracious sleeping with Eel and Bream, but Voila's wife as well? Lovely.

Very sad that Eel's father kicked her out... (hide spoiler)]

Through Part 5: (view spoiler)[ Ok I think I finally understand why she said she had 2 fathers. It may have revealed that at the beginning too but honestly, I was only reading a few pages a time in this for a while because I was focusing on some library books and this book is much better when you can take in an entire part in one go.

I'm glad Rattler came to get Eel and go with her. It's sad that All-Knowing went out to sea and died though. I know Eel is drowning this entire time she's telling the story but we're nearing the end now and I really hope she makes it. Rattler as well. (hide spoiler)]

Through the end: (view spoiler)[The ending was sort of sad and hopeless I felt, but I guess realistic. Her life and her baby's life were cut short. I'm glad Rattler did not get on the boat with her, so she can survive, but she just lost her father and her twin so it's not happy. (hide spoiler)]

I just now realized Ali Zamir is a man. I was thinking like Alley not Ah-lee and because the main character is a girl I guess. Oops.

I probably won’t get to this until early next week. I got involved with two team challenges, and this book didn’t qualify for either!

Beth wrote: "I probably won’t get to this until early next week. I got involved with two team challenges, and this book didn’t qualify for either!"

No problem Beth!

Hi SarahKat! I started this last week, but it's not really resonating with me and is slow going. I'm going to post in the main thread to extend into April as I do want to finish it!