Majed is the head of an Emirati family. He’s quite an unlikeable, angry fellow, full of himself and his power over others.  Dalal is the daughter of his second secret marriage and has been abandoned by her father.  Her dream is to become a famous singer, which is completely against her father’s wishes.  Even though her father has abandoned her, he holds control over her as he attempts to stop what he feels will bring shame and embarrassment to the family.  Mariam is Majed’s niece, the daughter of Majed’s dead brother.  Majed sends Mariam to dental school, mostly due to guilt because of his cheating his brother out of his business.  Both of these young women are greatly restricted in their efforts to lead their own lives by Majed and the Emirati society.

Mariam lives at a university in Cairo, while Dalal lives in the poor section of Cairo so you get a look at the two types of worlds. While it’s obvious why Majed would be an unlikeable character, I couldn’t like Dalal either.  She seemed so immature and only cares about becoming a star.  I found Dalal and her mother to be quite annoying.  Mariam is much easier to like as she struggles to become a dentist, feeling that was the only way she could escape her rigid family and the Emirati society.

This book has been compared to “The Kite Runner” but I didn’t think it had any of the emotional pull of “The Kite Runner”. It was basically a family drama made a bit different by its setting in an Arab culture.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Ah Paris. Filled with can-can girls and wine. Poets and painters. There is that Spanish guy, you know the male slut, and he did that blue painting with the bull.

                But seriously folks, and this is a serious book, And the Show Went On is a rather close and compelling look at how the artists of all stripes (painters, writers, dancers, singers and so on) coped (or didn’t) while France was under Nazi Occupation. The focus is mostly on Paris though Vichy France is discussed as well.

                It does raise interesting questions. What exactly is going too far? When do you get too chummy? And how can you rebel if you are too old, too scared, too whatever? Riding looks at the different artists as well as the different ways in which they dealt with the war. This includes anything from collaborating (Vichy France, as Riding describes it sounds like a Nazi Germany in the making) to joining the marquise to areas where lines between good and bad are not quite so clear. Of course, there are artists who for whatever reason could not fight back and why – usually because they have been sent to their deaths.

                Some of the heroes, if that is the correct word, are surprising, and some of the villains are surprising as well. Regardless, your understanding of Occupied Paris will increase.