Very interesting personal history of an important time in history

I was fascinated by the first half of this book. Sardas tells of his family's struggles as a Jewish family in Egypt. They dealt with death, persecution, discrimination, exile, and so many more life-changing issues. But, the second half focused more on Sardas's various jobs after leaving Egypt. And reading about him being awesome at every job he took, despite not knowing the language and having no experience, just wasn't super interesting.

This is the story of Jacob , a young Greek Jewish boy who grew up in Alexandria, Egypt in a poor but volatile family! His father, Raphael, knew more than ten languages, and his mother, Dora, worked as a teacher in France, before they married and moved to Egypt to try and make a living in Egypt like Doras' brother Vita had done.

Jacob's father, Raphael, had a bad temper, which Jacob inherited, this temper will help him when he gets chased by Muslim thugs! Raphael had trouble working for other people, and he frequently lost his job. He finally started selling cloth for men's suits to doctors, lawyers and anyone who would buy it.
He did not do well, and the family grew up poverty stricken with their home and furniture almost getting repossessed many times until the father made money at the last minute.

His mother, Dora, was a loving mother who stayed up late sewing her children's clothes and trying to make meals out of whatever she could buy! She also tried to give her children a good education by putting them in good schools.

Jacob had a birthmark and a nickname that caused other children to bully him until his mother told him that having it made him special and destined to do great things!
You will have to read the book for yourself to find out what happens to Jacob, , his family and his future in a country that used to tolerate its Jewish population and then turned against them and persecuted them.

This book was far to heavy for me, the writing style just didn't pull me in and I found myself skimming through so I gave up and put it down

The author, born in Egypt in 1930, reminisces on his long life. Parts about Egypt during the 1950;s were particularly interesting. I did find myself thinking, "Today, there's no way a person could just leave a country and move somewhere where they knew no one, couldn't even speak the language, and wind up a CEO."