I really liked the Beekeeper of Aleppo and I went into this with an open mind because I'm a bit contrary with contemporary fiction and sometimes I'll really like it and sometimes I'll really hate it. So there was bated breath and expectation for this but then... I really enjoyed the writing; it's lyrical but not pretentious, and I enjoyed the story in terms of what it was trying to achieve. What I absolutely hated though and just could not get past was the animal abuse. It's extreme and it's all the way through this book. Not only that but one of the perpetrators of said abuse is otherwise portrayed as quite a sympathetic character and I just didn't like it.

To be fair it wasn't just the content in terms of the cruelty to animals that upset me about this novel. It just made me feel sad the whole time I was reading it. Sad and it's left me with just a slight air of depression that I am not enjoying at all. Nothing is solved, nothing matters, nothing changed the outcome, and everything dies. No thank you.