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An Emotion of Great Delight

Tahereh Mafi

Start date: September 1, 2021

Finish date: September 30, 2021

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Discussion leader: Sylvs (NOVELty Reads)

Why we're reading this: Moderator's BOTM for September. Theme: YA Historical Fiction. …more
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What Members Thought

Sep 18, 2021 Zitong Ren rated it it was ok

Shelves: contains-romance, 2021, diverse, contemporary, young-adult

Whelp... i am really confused. Just like, there’s a lot of good stuff in here that I do like, but then, this didn’t feel like a complete novel. I was genuinely baffled when it ended as it failed to resolve literally anything. See, Tahereh Mafi’s most popular series is the Shatter Me series, which I read the first book and didn’t like at all unfortunately. Now, what I will say is that she can really write, in that her prose is STUNNING. Yet, in terms of actual plot and character development, thi Whelp... i am really confused. Just like, there’s a lot of good stuff in here that I do like, but then, this didn’t feel like a complete novel. I was genuinely baffled when it ended as it failed to resolve literally anything. See, Tahereh Mafi’s most popular series is the Shatter Me series, which I read the first book and didn’t like at all unfortunately. Now, what I will say is that she can really write, in that her prose is STUNNING. Yet, in terms of actual plot and character development, this lagged so much for me. Nothing was clearly defined for me sadly, including the plot, setting and characters.

Now, each of the characters are well written and are highly interesting individuals with so much going for them, yet at the same time, the main timeline of this novel takes place over the course of a single day. Part of the issue with that was that we failed to see the characters change, grow and flourish. Now, there are multiple timelines, yet it was hard to distinguish any proper change between the characters even within the changes in time - their voices largely read and felt the same, the only difference was their current situation in that moment. I liked following Shadi as a character and I wanted to see her change and develop and just did not materialise in this book.

It is very sad, this is a novel filled with so much loss and tragedy that it can be almost numbing as these miserable events just keep happening without stop. Then the problematic thing about that is that it does not allow the reader to properly process the event before skipping onto the next one. So, in that sense, this novel was utterly devastating, yet, it didn’t have that much of an impact on me personally as like, sure, I my reactions were in the veins of JESUS CHRIST that’s shocking, but then, we just moved on to the next tragedy without letting me properly process it.

I was sort confused by the purpose of the plot in this novel. There was a severe lack of direction and felt highly random, which fair life is random, but then it lacked structure for me. Also, I understood the significance and impact of the backstory chapters/time shifts and yet, I felt they were less impactful on me than they could have been? They were certainly well written, and it blended in really well, as often timeline jumps can feel jarring, but it flowed seamlessly here which I appreciate a lot. Now, just on the ending, it felt far too abrupt for me. I do believe that there a more story to tell but ended up feeling like a YA romance, where the rest of the book didn’t feel like that at all to me. It was an incredibly random conclusion where I finally felt that things were starting to come together, and then WHAM, the novel was over.

The setting was odd. I felt that I understood the intention of it being set after the September 11 attacks and the ramifications on the Muslim community, yet that aspect for me was largely sidelined and not properly explored. It mentions some incredibly disgusting stuff that occurred during that time, yet if the novel was set in the present, it honestly would not make much of a difference except for a few paragraphs so whilst I understood the intentions, it didn’t actually have a proper impact on this story.

Now, with that being said I ate up this books prose, because it’s easy to read whilst also flowing superbly along with so much beauty and lyricism to it. I do believe I had a similar reaction to reading Shatter Me in regard to the prose.

Arguably, this is a very well written book, yet it unfortunately didn’t really work out for me. I was sitting at about a three, yet the way this ended felt way too loose and random, and I personally didn’t get the point. The writing is beautiful, and the characters have lots of depth, yet lacked development. 4.5/10 ...more

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Sep 18, 2021 Sylvs (NOVELty Reads) rated it liked it

TW: SELF HARM, REFERENCES TO SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, ISLAMOPHOBIA

This is one of those books that I genuinely don't know how to talk about.

It's very difficult for me to put into words how this story made me feel and what it made me think. I'm still trying to collect my thoughts. For me, the book felt incomplete, like there was a part of the book missing when the book ended and I was just waiting for something to happen... but it never did. In essence, I was struggling to see where the story was go TW: SELF HARM, REFERENCES TO SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, ISLAMOPHOBIA

This is one of those books that I genuinely don't know how to talk about.

It's very difficult for me to put into words how this story made me feel and what it made me think. I'm still trying to collect my thoughts. For me, the book felt incomplete, like there was a part of the book missing when the book ended and I was just waiting for something to happen... but it never did. In essence, I was struggling to see where the story was going or the book's message and I don't think I ever found out. I was left more perplexed leaving the book than I did starting it.

An Emotion of Great Delight is one of those books that is very hard to define. It follows a muslim girl, Shadi as she navigates her way through teenagehood in a post-9/11 world and during the period of time when America announced war on Iraq. While those events made up the socio-cultural landscape of the book, it wasn't a main focus and instead concentrated on Shadi's personal and family life.

Shadi's father spent the majority of the novel in hospital suffering from a heart attack. We learn fairly quickly that Shadi wishes her father was dead due to reasons we discover later in the book. That question of why would Shadi wish him dead? was a central mystery element to the story and I liked how that intrigue was kept throughout and kept me reading on to discover more. I wanted to know why and I was waiting for a revelation to happen and when it did, I kind of expected something more from it.

To discover why Shadi wished her father dead, why she was trying to avoid Ali, her best friend Zahra's brother and what happened between her and Zahra, we went back through time through time jumps back to the previous year and into present day. I didn't mind the time lapses but it did take quite a bit of time to get my head around at the start and I found myself often flipping back to check if the part I was reading was in 2002 or 2003. I liked uncovering all these questions and I liked seeing how all the pieces from the previous points of view amalgamated together.

That being said, I feel like the saying of "one step forward, two steps back" is very applicable in this circumstance. It was as if when one question was answered, so many more were appearing and by the books end, there were still so many left unanswered that I found I wasn't satisfied with the ending at all. The ending didn't feel rushed but it didn't feel whole either. Because of the ending, I was wondering what the point of everything I just read was. I believe that the information presented in a book should have some connection or link that eventually has some sort of significance to the ending or eventual resolution of a story. If there is no connection or link then it feels like pieces of a story, rather than a whole story if that makes any sense. It felt like I was just waiting for something to happen and when there were opportunities for drama, it felt very downplayed.

This book also didn't have a firm plot. I've seen books without firm plots and there have been some that I loved wholeheartedly such as Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda or A Very Large Expanse of Sea which was also written by the same author. I just wanted An Emotion of Great Delight to have more substance to it. It felt quite surface level. We had hints of drama without it ever being brought up or acted upon and overall, the book's elements just didn't tie together in the end. I think this will be one of those books I won't remember the story of in a couple of months or a years time. Nothing really stood out for me apart from the writing and Shadi's narration.

All in all, this book had a great premise and it did have a lot going for it but in the end, it felt quite vague and a lot of things were left open ended.

ACTUAL RATING: 3.1 STARS ...more

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