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In Vendela Vida’s taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. Almost immediately, while checking into her hotel, she is robbed, her passport and all identification stolen. The crime is investigated by the police, but the woman feels there is a strange complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities—she knows she’ll never see her possessions again.
Stripped of her identity, she feels both burdened by the crime and liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone at all. Then, a chance encounter with a film crew provides an intriguing opportunity: A producer sizes her up and asks, would she be willing to be the body-double for a movie star filming in the city? And so begins a strange journey in which she’ll become a stand-in—both on-set and off—for a reclusive celebrity who can no longer circulate freely in society while gradually moving further away from the person she was when she arrived in Morocco.
My thoughts:
You go into this book thinking you know what will happen. But you are wrong, and realize that you do not know anything. You do not even know who is speaking, or if you are you.
Ok so the whole point with that was to show how the book is written in 2nd POV. At first I was a bit what? I can't even remember the last thing I read anything in 2nd POV. But in the end it did help with the dilemma the main character is facing.
The main character, who has no name, since we are on the outside and in her head. She comes to Casablanca, her things gets stolen. She takes on another persona. She gets a job all the sudden. She wonders about her stolen persona. She is lying to everyone. And then we found out that she is also lying to herself. Little by little the pieces fall aside and we learn about her. That is when I really started to feel sorry for her.
The book feels intense even though it's short and not intense. It might feels so cos we are stuck in her head. You feel what you feel.
The end was rather sudden, I did want more. But I wish her the best.
Conclusion:
Enjoyable.
Cover
eh
Paperback, 224 pages
Expected publication: September 17th 2015 by Atlantic Books
Fiction
for review
