Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!

3.5 stars

This was a fascinating read. I found the earlier vignettes interesting and profound. While I enjoyed the lead-up to the present day, I found it increasingly difficult to follow the story/narrator's relationships.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eArC in exchange for an honest review

A set of linked stories following several generations of a Lebanese Canadian family, from their first landing in Montreal after fleeing the Druze in Lebanon, to contemporary generations returning to Lebanon to figure out why, and other parts of their family (Portuguese, Syrian) and how they relate. The stories are all very different: some spanning years, some an afternoon, some a season. Some characters are given more than one story, others are background figures more than they have their own stage.

One of my favourite stories from the Biblioasis 2023 collection of the Best Canadian Short Stories, “Your Hands are Blessed,” is reprinted here as part of the family saga, and I was delighted to read it again. This is a lovely collection, though some stories were just a little too light to make sense as part of the whole. But I loved the exploration of family and culture here.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. While the book started out well and interesting, after a while, I felt a little lost reading this and wasn't sure what was happening or who was the narrator of each story.