Review by nessmd01 -- Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch

[nessmd01]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Keys to Tetouan" by Mois Benarroch.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Keys to Tetouan is book one in the Tetouan trilogy. It describes the struggles of the Benzimra family growing up Jewish.

In one chapter, a young man learns that his father was Jewish, and sets out to learn about his ancestor's history. In his journey, he learns that his ancestors lives were far from perfect.

The Jewish people, during this time were in fear for their lives and their family's safety, as others didn't particularly favor them. So, this Jewish family, stayed on the move. They were in search of safer places to live and raise their families. These were places of refuge that provided them protection from persecution and offered work that would help their financial situations.

Although, they found work, many places didn't offer the best of living situations. These situations presented other health factors, such as illness caused by poor water, insects, etc. However, the Jewish people, during this time they had to live the life given to them.. And this meant doing anything possible that would help them survive.

My Take on the Novel:

I give this book 2 out of 4 stars, because it was hard to read, due to the severity of grammatical errors.

Although I completed the book, I found that it was hard to read. I believe that the grammatical correctness of the book got lost in translation. Many sentences were separated by commas when periods should have been used to end the sentence. Most of the paragraphs were one long sentence, with no indication of breaks.

Paragraph structure wasn't the only issue making this book hard to read. There's many grammatical errors throughout the book, for instance, many chapters had the dash symbol in front of the speaking parts, indicating that they were bullet points. This made deciphering who the speaker was impossible.

Also, the chronological order of this family's history was out of order. For instance, one chapter was about the family's life in 1996, but several chapters later, the storyline took place in 1995.

What I liked most about this book was the history surrounding this family, and how they dealt with less than perfect circumstances. It shines a light on how bad life is sometimes, and we can come out on the other side. However, I didn't like not being able to follow the storyline. It was all over the place and I had to decipher the storyline throughout most of the book.

This book would appeal to history lovers, people of Jewish heritage, or those studying different heritages. However, this book would not appeal to those who enjoy reading mystery and fantasy novels.

In my opinion, this book would benefit from proofreading and editing, to make the storyline easier to follow. It's a great historical piece, but the readability of this book was poor.

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Keys to Tetouan
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