رواية مسلية بشدة تتنهي في خفة
دون فلسفة
تناقش مشاكل المغتربين
او تظهرها بصورة بسيطة وساخرة
تخليك تقول يا سلام
يا اخي
ايه دا
مفيش الكلام الكبير المجعلص
رواية لطيفة بشدة
:)

Est-ce que j’ai compris ce roman? Peut-être.

Somewhat bleak but interesting story, doubly worth reading since the shootings at Charlie Hebdo

I was going to write a review about this book, but then I remembered that I don't remember anything about it. I read it last month and it has already slipped from my mind.

I love coming of age novels, but this protagonist is barely memorable.

read it for class and didn’t feel like reading it so yk
it was good but nothing special

“I wonder why they call them wisdom teeth… The more they grow, the more you understand stuff? Personally, I’ve learned that learning hurts.”

It’s an understandable sentiment. Fifteen year old Doria’s life is far from perfect. She lives with her mother in a tower block on the outskirts of Paris.

Her father has returned to his Moroccan birthplace to find a new wife who will provide him with the son he so badly wants. And so mother and daughter are left to subsist on the meagre wages that a woman who doesn’t speak the language can earn as an office cleaner.

Understandably Doria is angry. With her father’s abandonment. With the casual racism that she and her mother regularly encounter. And with all the people who say they understand when they clearly don’t.

But this isn’t an angry book. It’s a slice of the life of a fifteen year old girl who doen’t stop for too long to think about hows and whys. She just gets on with things.

There are dark theme: poverty, opression, racism. But they are balanced by humour, emotional ties, and a wonderful sense of community.

Doria holds it all together. She has a black sense of humour, a strong moral compass, and wonderful powers of observation. I loved her and I believed in her completely.

I loved watching her interact with a broad cast. Mrs Burland, a counsellor who clearly cares but doesn’t quite understand. Hamoudi, her closest friend, Their lives are moving in different directions, but the bond between them remains. Shopkeepers, neighbours, aunties …

Yes, community is so important.

And there was plenty going on. This is one of those books you can open to any page and find a great one liner, a perfect observation or a memorable incident. Sometimes you’d find all three!

A little more plot, a little more structure wouldn’t have gone amiss though. The story dropped into Doria’s and Yasmina’s lives, and then it dropped out again with a little progress but no real conclusion.

But the rich content, beautifully balanced with a great authorial touch, did balance that.

And it was lovely to meet Doria and Yasmina. Their relationship was the best thing of all. Doria’s pride in her mother and how she was working to support them both. Yasmina’s confidence in her daughter, tempered with concern and uncertainly about what the future might hold.

That’s what is staying with me, and making me smile when I think about the book.

The main character's jocular contempt for her situation (suddenly fatherless and adrift in a Paris banlieue) reminded me of the protagonist from Murakami's Rat trilogy. A delight.

Doria a 15 ans, un sens aigu de la vanne, une connaissance encyclopedique de la tele, et des reves qui la reveillent. Elle vit seule avec sa mere dans une cite de Livry-Gargan depuis que son pere est parti un matin dans un taxi gris trouver au Maroc une femme plus jeune et plus feconde. Ca, chez Doria, ca s'appelle le mektoub, le destin: "Ca veut dire que quoi que tu fasses, tu te feras toujours couiller." Alors autant ne pas trop penser a l'avenir et profiter du present avec ceux qui l'aiment ou font semblant. Sa mere d'abord, femme de menage dans un Formule 1 de Bagnolet et soleil de sa vie. Son pote Hamoudi, un grand de la cite qui l'a connue alors qu'elle etait "haute comme une barrette de shit." Mme Burlaud, sa psychologue, qui met des porte-jarretelles et sent le Parapoux. Les assistantes sociales de la mairie qui defilent chez elle parfaitement manucurees. Nabil le nul qui lui donne des cours particuliers et en profite pour lui voler son premier baiser. Ou encore Aziz, l'epicier du Sidi Mohamed Market avec qui Doria essaie en vain de caser sa mere. Il se mariera sans les inviter? Peu importe, "Maman et moi on s'en fout de pas faire partie de la jet-set.""Kiffe kiffe demain" est d'abord une voix, celle d'une enfant des quartiers. Un roman plein de seve et d'humour.

i’m not sure if u can count what i did as reading so i probably have no right to rate this so badly but like what. the cover is the first red flag. doria is a good vibe though i guess. idk. ap french

Heard about this book and this writer at a conference I attended recently. It sounded like, and turns out it's true that, Guene is inserting into a western literature a much needed new voice. Specifically the voice of the younger, urban, immigrant underclass just surviving in and around Paris. Doria, the adolescent protagonist of the novel, is a young woman of Algerian descent living with her mother in the projects just outside of Paris. (The father has abandoned the family.) Like any adolescent she's fiercely embittered (think Holden Caulfield) and decidedly outspoken, also very very cynical about the adults in her life, perhaps most so about the adults--teachers, social workers--who claim to want to help her and her mother. To be honest, the book struck me as mostly a study in voice. And there sure is a strong one carrying it all the way through. It was harder to discern the arc of a narrative, although one is there, and it becomes more clear the closer one gets to the end. I can't say I adored this book--it has some glaring weaknesses as a novel--but I sure am glad I read it. I would recommend it to others.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The plot is pretty predictable - it is nothing we haven't read before in other coming-of-age teenage novels - but the voice is so strong (the translating of French backslang into British urban slang was a nice touch, I thought) that it didn't matter. The character of Doria is utterly compelling - belligerant yet vulnerable; cynical yet heart-breakingly naive - I would have happily spent twice the length of the book again inside her head. (I hear there is a sequel & intend to track it down.)

This is the second novel I've read from French author Faïza Guène. In this book, which was her first debut novel and success, the author introduces to the lives of the Guettos/ HLM/ Banlieus through the eyes of a teenage French girl of Moroccan poor parents and abandoned by her father. The author debileteraly doesn't focus on violence and drugs like the French Media/Politicians keep stigmatizing them for. She does mention it, but the author depicts the lives of the various residents and how there are many similarities, but also differences.

Like the leading character, a teenage girl lost into who she is and what is her place in life, in the residence, the city and country. Thus, she's always in doubt, angry, clueless, pessimistic and hopeless because her life seems not to change at all and just like everyone else. Easy to feel negative and disappointed of life in that environment. However, with time, the leading character observes some small and positive changes into various people's lives, whether about love, financial status, or happiness. Thus, she gains confidence in her own future.