Biblibio's Reviews > Thirteen Months of Sunrise

If I'm going to be honest, while I liked Rania Mamoun's Thirteen Months of Sunrise (translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette) a nice amount, that's about where it ends - it's a good, VERY tiny short story collection that stumbles most in rising to the level of being truly great or amazing. There is absolutely nothing bad or negative in this collection, and I can't point to any individual story that expressly disappointed me, but the book's overall brevity meant that it was a little hard for me to have any stronger feelings about it on the whole. I enjoyed the collection! It's very short, a very quick read, and its stories are good. But it also didn't leave much of an impression on me. I started reading it, I finished reading it. I wanted more. Hence: Slight disappointment.

Mamoun's writing is straight-forward and very clear, which also helps carry this collection along in such a brief way. There are lovely descriptive moments, but for the most part things are simply... as they are. Some of the stories are melancholic, others are emotionally raw, and others still feel a little quieter in conveying a shifting world. It all flows very neatly. The stories themselves feel exactly the right length and style, even as the collection feels like it's missing a piece. Or maybe I am, who knows.

Suffice to say: I enjoyed Thirteen Months of Sunrise. It's a good collection and it's a really easy recommendation for almost every reader, both in its straight-forwardness and its length; I can see this working brilliantly for slower readers looking for something to immerse themselves in without the downside of bloated storytelling. But I still couldn't shake the feeling by the end that the book had passed me by very quickly. Was that all? Isn't there more? I suppose I can only hope that more of Mamoun's works make their way into English...