1 out of 4 stars
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Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarrouch is a historical fiction novel following the Benzimra family's many branches as they reach all places in the world while always longing for Jerusalem. The book is short, under three hundred pages, and told in three main styles. The first is an old man rambling about his past. The second is short conversations between a boy and his mom. This takes up the first half of the book. The third, which take ups the second half of the book, is more like a regular novel.
I know nothing about Jewish history aside from the holocaust. That is why this book intrigued me, and I picked it. Unfortunately, while there is interesting info in this book, it was lost on me. I was very confused for most of the book. I didn't understand who was talking, and the rambling made it hard for me to follow what had happened in the story. This caused me to not connect with the characters and in turn, with the story.
I feel like I must rate this a 1 out of 4 stars. I can not recommend this for anyone because I do not think they could wade through it all just like I could not.
I do not think I could tell you who was who in this story because there was so many names and places, and not enough description for me. It caused the information to not stick to my brain. I don't feel the triumphant happiness a book usually leaves me feeling. I feel much like I have left a test I was forced to take in another language. I do not know if I would have enjoyed this more if I had more background knowledge. People with backgrounds similar to the Benzimra’s family would probably relate more than I would. People with more knowledge of Jewish history would probably understand more than I did. I do find that to be lacking with this book. A certain subset of people should not be the only audience for this book. It should have enough information in it that a person who had never the word Jewish before could read and understand what is going on.
I do know this book was translated. Maybe I could read the original that would also solve my problem. I do know that Spanish books do dialogue differently so I wasn't surprised by how it was formatted, but it still caused me to have trouble with reading. This could be a specific taste of mine though. For a lot of books, they could be a complete miss to one person, and a complete hit for another. This could very well be that for somebody else.
This book did go by quite quickly. The dialogue mainly added to that, but that is always a good thing for me. It had short chapters and easy diction. With dialogue tags and more description in the beginning with who is talking and everything I think it would have been easier to get into at first.
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Keys to Tetouan
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