Almond Attention

Lord helps us. Another review of The Almond, and another reviewer who doesn’t get it. Here’s an example:

Nedjma writes in painstaking – and often painful – detail about Islamic customs regarding marriage and sexual practices. “No, I didn’t love Hmed, but I did think he’d be of use to me, at least – he’d make a woman of me. Free me and cover me with gold and kisses,” Badra says of her husband. Then: “All he managed to do was deprive me of my laughter.”

The book tells the story of one woman from Imchouk, one woman who goes to Tangier and takes a lover. How the hell do you go from that to “Islamic customs”? What the hell are Islamic customs anyway? Bosnian? Malaysian? Chinese? French? What?