Zephren > Recent Status Updates

Second book complete. Time is flying by now.
Gonna take a break again and read some other books.

Damnit Kamal has discovered atheism, alcohol, and women… pls dont turn out like Yasin… also havent gotten an update on Khadija snitching on Aisha for over 100 pages. I’m pretty invested in this final stretch of the 2nd book ngl

Khadija is somehow becoming the most annoying character… which is hard to do

Well these characters are still shitty people lol… hopefully theres another moment at the end of books 2 and 3 that are as impactful as the end of book 1 bc otherwise its gonna be a slog.

Onto book 2

Almost done

Friendship woohoo

Progress at last

Finished the first book in the trilogy.

Woah… I was not prepared for the emotions the ending brought up for me.

Not a fan of many of the characters in this series but theyre very human. Its a great insight into a totally different culture, and I like the similes/metaphors that Mahfouz uses because many are so uniquely Egyptian.

I’m not enjoying how constrained the lives of the women are 1910s Egyptian society

Woah difficulty of understanding just skyrocketed…

Part 1 (Beyond the Zero) - difficult, description of last phase of war in UK. main themes(?): death, uncertainty vs absolutes?
Part 2 (The Zone) - understandable, description of post war chaos in mainland europe, satire of West and new world order. Main themes: paranoia, death, elite vs. preterite
Part 3 (The Counterforce) - no idea whats going on… pop-culture?

At 75% it seemed like the perfect ending to the book with the lemmings and pig metaphors… not sure where we’re going now. Also I think I get it?? This is satire of everything wrong with Western society? Honestly makes this book seem brilliant to me if so

Wow this is a wildly uncomfortable read… skipping several sections here.

I think I can finish this… do I want to is the question

Ew…

Never before have I skipped a book section for being too gross… wow uhh

Truly incredible description of christmas during war time… chills

What the hell is going on

Gonna give myself grace to bail on this one…

Ugh

Oops

Ugh

Ugh

This is very helpful and interesting but has doubled the reading length