Brooke Yanaga’s Reviews > If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English > Status Update

“His texts also consist of theoretical food offerings, and in them, I hear how the women in his family have loved him. Here, have peanuts and buffalo milk, he texts me. Have black tea with fresh mint. Come eat pickled lemons from my hand. Have tomatoes with cumin. Are you happy? I am trying to please you with the little I have. Here, have grapes. Have a chocolate croissant.”

“When I first told my father I was going to Cairo, he changed the subject, pretended not to have heard me…He cleared his throat, as though fatherhood had just been declared carcinogenic, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He was doing a cleanse, he was detoxing: he had given up gluten, and dairy, and daughters.”

hating the questions between chapters, giving horrible instagram poet (so sorry).