Absolutely captivating. I was hooked by the character but could not look away from this story. Had exactly the cult-vibes I was hoping for.

I didn't love The Center as much as others I have heard from did. I thought it was a great concept, but that it dragged on a little longer than I would have liked.

This book was so creepy, that I could not believe what I was listening to. I was so excited for this book - A Pakistani Muslim author book with actual South Asian representation plus Dark thriller genre - sign me up. But I think I don't really have the stomach for this (that is coming from me -who kind of like Black Mirror).

To start off the Main character Anisa is very unlikeable she reeks of privilege and does not at all understand anything relating to struggle - immigrant or otherwise. I did like the thoughtful narrative sections about colonization, immigration, feminism, religion etc. She is a translator working for something in the lines of Netflix creating subtitles living in London while living off the money her parents sent her. Her boyfriend Adam (a mediocre white man as per Anisa) gives her inferiority about her language learning abilities when he seems to go away for sometime and come back absolute grasp of everything about a language. After a lot of probing he tells her about Centre, an language learning retreat that helps him be this fluent in languages and agrees to recommend her. All hell breaks loose then and the story starts it downfall.

Okay so here where it lost me - there is so much disrespect towards one-self and in general humanity which might be tone of the book but the satire did not really hold up. There is poorly written romance - SA (I did not get the point of inclusion of that in the story) - cannibalism (ughh just thinking of it makes me sick). Please please look up TW before you go into this book - the surprises are not really worth it.

At 77% I had this to say - How did I both see this coming and did not!! I expected darkest of dark twists yet not this?

Many thanks to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media and the author for the ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Do you like the cover of this book? Isn’t the bouquet beautiful ? So colorful and full of … such interesting and hidden sinister things. That's exactly what this book is. Very exciting, but full of hidden horror.

How would you like to learn a new language in just ten days? And not just to learn, but you know it as well or better than your mother tongue. The center offers selected clients an exceptional and experimental program under the cover of secrecy, where just by listening and following a strict diet, the language can be learned without much effort.

Anisia, who has so far only translated Bollywood movies into English, wants to learn more languages ​​so badly because she wants to translate something extraordinary. So when she hears about this program from her boyfriend, she hesitates to sign up (the pay is pretty highh, after all), but she wants to learn German. At first, she doesn't believe that this listening will work, and after a few days after the start of the training, she starts having strange dreams, and she is even ready to give it all up, but before half the time has passed, she is even thinking in German, let alone translating the text. But how can that be possible?
When she goes there for the second time (this time to learn Russian), she begins to interact more closely with the headmistress of the Center and…

The way in which participants acquire a new language is extraordinary and... I don't want to say horrifying, but it is horrifying and at the same time so logical, because they say that the best way to learn a language is to completely immerse yourself in the language environment... or rather the opposite, to absorb the language.

Such a "Black Mirror" like story .

So this book was interesting. I did not read what this was about before I started so I was kinda confused in the beginning. And then I was very much wow I did not see that coming.
Basically if you are invited you can head to this place called the centre and be able to learn a language in 10 days. The main character, being someone interested in language, obviously is intrigued. But it ends up being more than she could have imagined.
I enjoyed the audio book. The narrator had me picked in that I ended up listening to this in one day lol.

I'm a sucker for science fiction, especially science fiction that touches on the way information, data, and culture intersect. The reality of capitalism can be terrifying, and this book is an excellent warning on allowing tech to run unchecked. The Centre captured my interest from the beginning, but I found the pacing to be a little lacking. This is a book that will appeal to fans of Dave Eggers' The Circle and Blake Crouch novels.

Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi writes a spellbinding dreamlike novel that casted a spell over me. I was enthralled and captivate. The promise of becoming fluent in any language in 10 days is at the heart of the plot. But a lot is being said about people, cultures, and how we consume information.

Anisa Ellahi is a Pakistani translator in London. Her long term relationship with her boyfriend becomes even more strained when he becomes fluent in Urdu seemingly overnight. His language skills are unparalleled and when applied to her own language she is incensed. Adam eventually tells her of the language school he uses.

As Anisa becomes the type of translator she always dreamed of being, she confronts the price of her knowledge, the relationships she’s been involved with, and her complicity in the system that granted her newfound skills.

While the novel gets a little meta at the end, which is not my cup of tea, the overall novel is so well done I can forgive its ending. It works within the novel.

The interview with the author at the end of the audiobook was especially enlightening and a wonderful addition to the novel. In an interview with Powell’s she says,
“On the other hand, it’s a good thing that we are becoming more aware, now, of the problematic elements of the books we were reading at such formative ages, and that we are starting to revisit [the books we read] with a more critical gaze, to untangle the effects on our psyche from the racist, ableist, patriarchal, and classist currents in the books we consumed as children.”

This idea of the classics being questioned and revisited is also at the heart of the novel. The Centre had me gasping in shock toward the end. I really thought I knew where it was going and I was completely surprised and taken aback.

What’s a book you’ve revisited with new eyes?

I'm genuinely not sure what to make of this book. I *love* a weird book, and this fits the bill, but I did find parts of it quite slow. (I listened as an audiobook.) I loved the idea of the Centre, the implied power of polyglots in today's world, but when the twist came, I quickly lost interest. Maybe because the nature of the twist was something that I can't stomach, it just felt like a different novel altogether and less about the character growing and learning about her identity and place in the world. Throughout, I felt like the novel was striving to make a commentary that was going over my head and I felt an edge of frustration that what the author was trying to communicate felt muddy and unclear. That said, like any book, it has a lot to do with your state of mind when you're reading it, and maybe I wasn't in the right place. I found it compelling... right up until I didn't. I'll definitely pick up the author's next book though, maybe with this one she just tried to put too many things into one novel? I wish I could better articulate the part that missed for me, but even as I write this, I'm still fuzzy on *why* it fell apart for me, other than just the nature of the twist itself.

Wow, this was a weird one! I liked the story and the characters. It didn't pull me in as much as I would have liked but entertaining overall!

This was a weird one, but mostly in a good way. It reminds me a little bit of Babel, though it’s perhaps a more enjoyable story from start to finish.

I agree with other reviewers sentiments that it isn’t exactly funny, but it is the satire it purports to be, and I’m not sure the best satire always needs to be laugh out loud humorous.

I loved the concept behind this and the interesting linguistic debates that it sparks, particularly about which languages are universally prioritized as valuable and why. Translation is a deeply fascinating subject to me, and this is an intriguing meditation on its pitfalls.

The eponymous Centre remains a bit enigmatic to the end, which I think is fine and perhaps almost better for illustrating the point of the book. And the characters were nuanced and wonderfully drawn.

If you’re able, try this one on audio. The reader is wonderful and I wish she was the narrator for so many books I consume in this format.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick. Our library purchased and our patrons have been checking out and and enjoying the book. I see it is a popular book club choice as well we hope to have more oppurtinies to support authors like them

This book was a strange read for me. There were parts that I really liked and parts that didn’t quite work. I think the best aspect of the book is the unsettling feeling that creeps up while reading. The horror/dystopian element is handled pretty well, although I did find the twist a bit predictable.

I didn’t love the relationship between our MC and the program director. I found it strange that after she knew what was going on, she continued to have contact with these people. It makes no sense to me.

I’ve also read quite a bit about there being some blasphemous portrayals of Islam in this book. I am personally not Muslim, so I cannot speak to this in any depth. I, as a non-Muslim, did not notice anything particularly offensive, but again I may have a blind spot to that.

All in all, this one was just okay for me. I wanted to love it, but there were too many issues for it to be an overall good read.

This book has a truly phenomenal premise that reeled me in immediately - a woman learns about and subsequently attends a mysterious centre where a person can go to become fluent in any language in under two weeks.

The first half of this book is pretty good, but toward the end the book’s plot felt laboured, the narrative somewhat repetitive and the climax underwhelming. Further, many of the story’s threads were left unfinished. So, in summary, excellent premise, poor execution.

Absolutely not my favorite thing I have listened to but I did enjoy it. I will likely not think about this book ever again past writing this review though.

I read this novel a few months ago, and it's still with me. I'm not sure what to think of it, but I loved it.
This novel is about an elite language that claims to make anyone fluent in any language in just two weeks, but there is a catch. Their process is sworn to secrecy by anyone who attends, and regardless of the process, the student must complete the school's two-week course.

The writing in this novel is beautiful. Although in the beginning, I found the plot to be a little simplistic at first, it was far from it as the story progressed. The second half of the novel was fast-paced, and I couldn't stop listening to this novel. The main character in this novel turned out to be a little unreliable, which made the novel even more and led me to question everything I read. Overall, it is a thought-provoking and compelling read.

The Centre was a wonderfully written and thoroughly entertaining book. Loved the twist!! I liked the approach about translation and how to relate to others through language.

The TWISTS in this book, oh my!! I did not see that coming at all! I binged this book, really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down.

Ended up DNFing this one. However, I might try again in the future as I think maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this story at the time.

Well paced and full of detail. Claustrophobic and thrilling I felt like I was right inside of the book.
Thank you Netgalley for an awesome arc in exchange for my honest opinion

THE CENTRE would be a perfect book for those looking for thorough (though, fictional) discussions of various topics such as language, colonialism, power, privilege, oppression, gender, and the economy, all within the text. Considering the heavy presence of technology and social media in this book, I would not be surprised if that were a large theme in this book as well.

Though I see the value in some of those conversations, it could have been more effective to focus on the main points without getting too bogged down in details that may not have added much value. Things got very tedious after awhile, and I started to zone out after feeling like I was listening the same thing over and over. Nonetheless, I still found the book to be thought-provoking and I always appreciate a conclusion that is left open-ended.