Received from NetGalley, thanks!

I had a really difficult time giving this a star rating and went back and forth between 4 and 5 stars.  I enjoyed it, found it incredibly interesting, and think it's an important book, which made me want to give it 5 stars, but then I likely won't read it again, so I decided to go with 4.

This is a semi-autobiographical novel about a gay man living in Syria prior to the civil war.  It does jump back and forth in time, between his life in Syria (both before and during the war) as well as his new life in Sweden as a refugee with uncertain status.  I've read several other books by Syrian refugees, however, they were both refugees to Canada, and it seems like the refugee process is quite different between Canada and Sweden.  Or, it could also be the difference between being a refugee the "right way" (submitting your name, waiting for the call, getting on a plane, etc) and being a refugee the "wrong way" (escaping to Greece, taking a boat to Turkiye, using smugglers to get you to another country).  I absolutely don't think there is a right or wrong way to be a refugee, but I'm sure that governments think there is.  

It was interesting to read about the experience of a gay man in a Muslim country, and how there were these small spaces that he was able to fully be himself.  The hammams that he frequented, that despite homosexuality being illegal in Syria, he didn't feel shame and lived as openly as he was able to.  And then when he eventually made it to Sweden, where it's not illegal, he still wasn't able to live openly, as he had hoped.

While this is a fictional story, I saw that it is somewhat autobiographical, and it does read more like a biography than a novel.  I think this is probably because it is written in first person, and with a few exceptions (Furat, our narrator, has a vivid imagination) it is very realistic.

I definitely recommend this book if you are wanting to read more diversely and outside of a Western lens.