Review by usernameAng -- The Expelled by Mois Benarroch
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usernameAng
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- Latest Review: "The Expelled" by Mois Benarroch
Review by usernameAng -- The Expelled by Mois Benarroch
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Expelled" by Mois Benarroch.]
1 out of 4 stars
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The English translation of Mois Benarroch’s short novel The Expelled is listed as science fiction, although it has few sci-fi themes and fits more into historical fiction. This is a book within a book. The main story follows an author’s interactions with his wife’s clone, but the majority of the work is this fictional author’s own book. That book describes a bus’s journey to the sea, where the people arbitrarily divide themselves into “front people” and the inferior “back people.” We see multiple passengers’ accounts of the bus ride and the strange interactions between the two groups.
This book very heavily references Middle Eastern Jewish culture and history, which I have only a little personal knowledge of. The book is a social commentary, covering such topics as racism, sexism, and war crimes. The bus ride seems to be a metaphor for conflict between Israel and some neighboring country, which I’m not sure, with each rider giving a drastically different and unreliable description of what happened.
It might just be the translation, but The Expelled needs a lot of work done. This reads like an unedited rough draft, full of grammar mistakes, typos, and irrelevant information. It’s written as a stream of consciousness, which had the potential to be interesting but ultimately resulted in random, unrelated tangents. The shifts between the overarching story and the fictional author’s book as well as the past and present were nonexistent, making it difficult to keep up with what was happening. It was often difficult to determine which character was saying what during conversations. To add to the confusion, the author went into excruciating detail on the most mundane things, making you think that some fact or scenario is important when it’s actually inconsequential.
The story itself was boring, though that may be because it was difficult to keep track of and separate each individual storyline. There were constant references to music and other literature that I was not familiar with. I think the worst thing about The Expelled is how crude depictions of sex and violence were. Imagine a twelve year old trying to write an erotic love scene or describe rape and murder. I read the word “boner” at least ten times, if not more. It was strange, because the prose was often almost eloquent but then it would change to using “like” and other casual speech.
Overall, despite the concept being interesting, there wasn’t anything I liked about this book, so I’m giving it a 1 out of 4 stars. It’s incomplete, poorly written, and just plain boring.
******
The Expelled
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1 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
The English translation of Mois Benarroch’s short novel The Expelled is listed as science fiction, although it has few sci-fi themes and fits more into historical fiction. This is a book within a book. The main story follows an author’s interactions with his wife’s clone, but the majority of the work is this fictional author’s own book. That book describes a bus’s journey to the sea, where the people arbitrarily divide themselves into “front people” and the inferior “back people.” We see multiple passengers’ accounts of the bus ride and the strange interactions between the two groups.
This book very heavily references Middle Eastern Jewish culture and history, which I have only a little personal knowledge of. The book is a social commentary, covering such topics as racism, sexism, and war crimes. The bus ride seems to be a metaphor for conflict between Israel and some neighboring country, which I’m not sure, with each rider giving a drastically different and unreliable description of what happened.
It might just be the translation, but The Expelled needs a lot of work done. This reads like an unedited rough draft, full of grammar mistakes, typos, and irrelevant information. It’s written as a stream of consciousness, which had the potential to be interesting but ultimately resulted in random, unrelated tangents. The shifts between the overarching story and the fictional author’s book as well as the past and present were nonexistent, making it difficult to keep up with what was happening. It was often difficult to determine which character was saying what during conversations. To add to the confusion, the author went into excruciating detail on the most mundane things, making you think that some fact or scenario is important when it’s actually inconsequential.
The story itself was boring, though that may be because it was difficult to keep track of and separate each individual storyline. There were constant references to music and other literature that I was not familiar with. I think the worst thing about The Expelled is how crude depictions of sex and violence were. Imagine a twelve year old trying to write an erotic love scene or describe rape and murder. I read the word “boner” at least ten times, if not more. It was strange, because the prose was often almost eloquent but then it would change to using “like” and other casual speech.
Overall, despite the concept being interesting, there wasn’t anything I liked about this book, so I’m giving it a 1 out of 4 stars. It’s incomplete, poorly written, and just plain boring.
******
The Expelled
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Like usernameAng's review? Post a comment saying so!
Latest Review: "The Expelled" by Mois Benarroch
