A wonderful debut novel that I found educational as well as illuminating. It's well written and emotional. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I hate straplines that say a book is heart-wrenching, but The City Always Wins is definitely that. A telling of the 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring, after its seeming early success, the novel is full of hope, horror and a painful sense of needing to keep wading on despite the impossibility of fighting those with all the guns (my echo of Macbeth is intentional; it’s as if attempting to change the leadership will always lead to blood and monsters).

Like all summaries, this doesn’t do the novel justice. Mirroring the situation, The City Always Wins is complex, with multiple voices – not just of the central couple, Mariam and Khalil, whose lives we follow – but the voices of the parents of the martyrs killed in the first 18 days and endless tweets and texts, podcasts, snippets of internet and social media that helped to create and fuel the revolution. Indeed modern technology as a tool for connecting disempowered voices is explored. Khalil wonders if there is any point in continuing to use your voice to tell the story of the underdog, if no one is listening. As a founding member of Chaos, a media organisation set up to report and comment on the revolution, another member believes in the importance of telling stories regardless of the numbers of listeners; the stories can always be found if anyone looks for them.

Who listens and how the countries of the world connect is also a central theme. Khalil is half Egyptian, on his mother’s side. His father is from Palestine. He was, however, born in New York. His nationality is constantly in question, even after he is shot in the back fighting for Egypt’s future. Identity, both personal and national, is questioned. Khalil feels he can never be accepted in Egypt and never claim anything but forgetting in New York where assimilation is another form of annihilation.

Split into sections of Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday, the hope of Tomorrow slowly dwindles. There is a passage towards the end, when Khalil has gone back to New York for a short while, that describes the weighty saccharin world the revolution was fighting against:

A crane projects itself into the blue sky ahead. A mobile watchtower. Amsterdam and 125th. Harlem, Palestine. All around you it’s the same, every step wading into the eternal swamp of conquest and cleansing and murder. They’ll never stop chasing you, there’s no way out of history’s one long looping nightmare tripping through the dark bayou and it’s the things, you’re on the things and we want them: the army wants your land and the British want your oil and the Italians want your gas and the Americans want your airspace and your canal and your cimplicity and the Turks want your factories and the Australians want your gold and the Gulf wants your sweat and the Russians want your weather and the Japanese want your friendship and the Israelis want your name so there’s nothing left for you but to be gone. Gone, because we’re coming and first we’ll bring you war and you’ll run and we’ll seal iron chains around your neck and brand you with new names and drink your bodies in tea in your grandfathers’ houses and when we’re bored of war we will bring you peace and post-conflict resolution and interfaith dialogue and the United Nations and credit lines and television and when you choke we will grp your jaw firm in our hands and force open your mouth for structural adjustment and dialogue camps and off-Broadway plays and aid packages and first-party negotiations and mediated solutions and corporate social responsibility until your brain is reconfigured with our committee-designed computer-assisted algorithmically determined languages of unmeaning and you are stripped of all possibility of thought.

The triumph of it all is the vanquishing of imagination.

There can be nothing new. No new music is imaginable, no new genre, no new memories to repackage and sell, no new stories or ideas or possibilities, new new happinesses. There is only nostalgia and kitsch and superheroes and heartbreak and a sealed fate and surrender. There is no reality other than this one and no past that wasn’t marching towards it. They call it progress. It is undeniable, they tell us, it is all-conquering, it is this and it is now. The world is made. Countries are developed and other are not and so it shall be. A system is in place of such dominion there can be no imaging another. A system underpinned by a global network of trip wires, each tensed and primed to trigger self-destruction before evolution. Look around you. THere is no other world. There can be no other way. Surrender. There is only the now. Whisper it to your children at night. It would be better for them to accept it.

And yet of course, there is the novel. It subsumes new media well. It uses multiple voices. It takes an old form, yes, but it pushes it and fights with it. You do feel defeated at the end, but you also feel compassion and a little sliver of hope and amidst all the political wrangling (that include interesting comparisons with other revolutions) the human story is not lost. How Khalil and Mariam fell in love and how the terrible events of fighting for a different Egypt starved their love of any oxygen to breathe as their knowledge of each other’s failings and guilt made it impossible for them even to touch, provides the painfully intimate heart of a novel of politics and ideas.

This is a difficult novel to read, but more people should read it. There is a fever for dystopian novels, but this novel tells a story of our current world and it’s one we ought not to ignore.

At first I thought this book was nonfiction because I had misread the synopsis. Then I realized it was fiction...but based on very real events. The book is fast paced and chilling at times given the subject matter, but also treats its characters with humanity and empathy and urgency. I felt at times like I was there on the ground watching the Arab Spring happen around me. This is a very well done book. Fans of the recent books Exit West and American War will enjoy this book, though this book is much more releastic and faster paced.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A fascinating novel that captures the heart of the Egyptian revolution, focusing on the people and not just the politics. Although difficult to get into at times, this novel is a timely and important look at one of the key events of the twenty-first century, and the global repercussions it will bring.

Sometimes you appreciate a novel more than you enjoy reading it. The City Always Wins is important and well written, but it didn't always work for me. I'm still giving it 4 stars for its strengths. The novel takes place over a few years in the very recent past in Egypt. It is told primarily from the perspective of Khalil who grew up in the United States and whose father is Palestinian. It opens in Egypt in 2011, where Khalil and his girlfriend Mariam are fully engaged in the Arab spring. The perspective is very subjective, depicting Khalil's flitting perceptions and emotions. The story also moves almost in a staccato rhythm from one moment to another. As the revolution progresses, optimism transforms into fear, frustration and discouragement. Khalil's perspective is vividly contrasted with Mariam's who is steadfast in her beliefs. This is an important book because it not only deals with an important chapter in Egyptian history, but it also feels like it depicts the life of political revolution more generally. There are moments of absolute brilliance when I felt completely submerged in Khalil's reality. But I did get lost in what felt at times like an impressionistic staccato. Because I felt engaged in the story, at times I would have wanted more straightforward information about what was happening and how the characters fit in with each other. Still, it's a potent book about an important topic. I suspect many readers will love the approach while others will find it off putting -- I'm somewhere in the middle. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

The promise of a better life. A fight against an unbeatable enemy. A love in a time of upheaval. Almost 20 years under the dictator Mubarak come to an end when masses of people inspired by revolutions in other Muslim countries gather in Tahrir Square in Cairo and force Mubarak to resign. Social media are the new weapons and Mariam and Khalil are in the centre of the protests. They broadcast what is happening to the world and they treat the wounded always in fear of becoming a victim of the police, the army or any other group. Over months they keep their revolution alive, actually living from it, forgetting to eat, forgetting their own life. They feel their power to change something, but is there really hope for Egypt?

Omar Robert Hamilton, known for his fight for the Palestinian cause, combines the real events which took place in Egypt over 1.5 years with the fictitious story about Mariam and Khalil. Both of them are interesting characters. Mariam, on the one hand, who helps the doctors and could, together with her parents, establish a kind of camp hospital where immediate treatment is possible, who consoles the mothers of those who died in the protests and who is stubbornly following her ideals. Khalid, on the other hand, is not even Egyptian but find in the protests a kind of proxy for his family’s omitted fight for the Palestinian cause. With his American passport, he has no need to risk his life, but he is fully immersed in the revolutionary power and the mass movement and helps with his journalistic and technical knowledge. Their love is strong in the beginning, but the common aim slowly makes them drift apart. This becomes obvious when they talk to Mariam’s father about their plans for the future - marriage and children? No common ground can be found anymore, so what hold them together?

The strongest aspect of the novel, however, is the description of the fight. The risks the protesters take are impressively narrated. Their belief in a better country is strong and passionate. Some pieces were scary for somebody who was never close to such a situation: the young people writing the phone numbers of their nearest of kin on their arms so that the beloved can be informed in case of serious injury or death. I can only imagine people not really being ready to die, but accepting a possible death as a necessary danger to take for the cause.

Additionally, the narrative structure is remarkable. Omar Robert Hamilton has structured the novel in thee chapter: Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday. This diametrically opposes the chronological order and makes you wonder. Furthermore, the narrative is accelerated by frequent insertions of newspaper headlines, tweets and the like. The author thus managed to create an atmosphere of tension and excitement, you are really drawn into the plot and the characters’ emotional state of thrill.

Even though the plot is highly political, it is not judgemental at all. We get the uprising from a very personal point of view which I found most interesting and fascinating and important for outsiders. All revolutions are backed by ordinary people who risk everything. This novel most certainly gives them a voice and, most importantly, hints at a critical situation of a country which we tend to forget due to even more serious problems.

Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

The City Always Wins is poetic, heartbreaking and real. Omar Robert Hamilton has crafted a beautiful piece of literature that captures snapshots of hope and despair in a revolution. It is unique and emotional in a way that will stick with the reader long after they reach the last page.

This book is the story of the uprising that started in Tahrir Square in 2011, told through the eyes of Khalil, a Palistinian-Egyptian born in America who puts himself in the heart of the revolution and helps broadcast news from the front lines. The story is divided into three parts, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Each section brings its own energy, tone and structure, which Hamilton uses adeptly to pace the narrative. From a clear timeline and chapters to strings of frantic tweets and quotes to scenes scattered between news headlines, the reader's sense of time and place spins slowly out of control. Hamilton never lets you settle in, and that's good.

This is a difficult and relatively recent (some would say ongoing) issue. It's something that I admittedly knew little about beyond what U.S. news would have covered in the early days of the revolution in 2011. But it resonated with me as an American watching Black Lives Matter and the Women's March on Washington. It resonated with me as a Baltimore-area resident who watched unrest in the city in 2015 after Freddie Gray died. Some of Hamilton's words and the emotions of his character could have been about how some people felt after the election in November, and it's the universal feeling of hopelessness and ultimate decision to continue fighting that blend to make this book relatable and heartbreaking.

This tells the story of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Protesters make their grievances known. They have had to endure police brutality, fraud, corruption, lack of free elections and freedom of speech. The protesters organise strikes. demonstrations, riots and take part in online activism. When President Mubarak is overthrown by the military and another is elected president, nothing seems to change. There are more protests, arrests, torture and death. The violence increases and is like a vicious circle. The more the activists want to get the word out, the more they are leaving themselves open to attacks and being killed.

The story is focused on Miriam. Khalil and their group of friends. They are producers of podcasts, conduct interviews, organise protests, help families of the injured, dead and arrested. Their aim is to get justice for the atrocities that have been committed to the people of Egypt. It shows a different perspective of the revolution, how things are discussed and planned, how they will deal with the aftermath, their expectations and how they keep the pressure up for justice and the truth to be seen.

I would recommend this book for readers of contemporary fiction. It is a tough read due to the nature of the subject, but a worthwhile read.

Maybe it my inner revolutionary but I thought this book was amazing. It details the hardships of war, revolution, and dictatorships. It starts off with the Egyptian revolution in 2011, and details the struggles of two main revolutionaries, Miriam and Khalil. While they start off as a couple together, they slowly begin to drift apart as Miriam becomes more reactionary and Khalil seems to become more disillusioned. The author takes us on a journey through the excitement and hope of a new beginning when the revolution starts, through anger at the prosecution and torture of activists, and the slow disillusionment with society and the revolution when interest begins to wane and peoples opinions begin to shift.

"You need discipline to win a war. You need chaos to win an insurgency. So which are we?"

I felt like this line says it all. This is the underlying question they seem to ask themselves as the story progresses.

They fight the Army, the Muslim brotherhood, dictators and each other. While the writing can be a little frantic at times, I felt it fit with the story. The story is about revolution. Revolutions are by nature frantic. How do you keep things moving forward when the media loses interest, when the people lose interest? How do you keep moving forward when your whole identity is wrapped up in revolution? It was a fascinating and relevant story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to the publishers for making this available to me through netgalley.

Couldn't put down this urgent debut novel chronicling the Egyptian Arab Spring uprising. You follow the narrative through the lives of two young activists while checking in with the family of a young martyr. Hamilton does a great job of giving the reader the micro and macro views of this discrete time. Looking forward to reading more by this novelist.

This debut novel tells the story of the Egyptian revolution and the disappointment that follows in a frentic way making it difficult to keep up with at times. I feel like the emotion by the author bleeds into the story and makes it very difficult to turn away or not feel overwhelming emotions,especially with the descriptions of several deaths, the torture, and the passionate pleas of freedom. Definitely a relevant book for these times we live in, the fast pace and constant demands of social media and how apathetic people become after a short while of business as usual is captured perfectly.
Thank you to the publishers for making this available to me through netgalley and I hope when this book does release it captures a wide and attentive audience. To anyone who reads this review I certainly hope that you add it to your "to read" shelf as it is well worth your time