The cover states (I quote): “From the author of the million-copy selling       THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING”.

Not quite the way I would phrase it but I really did enjoy “The Yacoubian Building”!

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this one so much.

Sometimes a winning format doesn’t work when you are trying to repeat it. At least for me. It’s true that there are still a host of characters from different socio-economic statuses (people who would never interact with each other) who find their lives intertwined on a backdrop of a dramatic time in the history of Egypt. But there is too much repetition, the characters seemed “flatter” with certain qualities emphasized again and again.

Perhaps I would have found it more interesting if I hadn’t read the previous book, but the characters failed to hold my interest for the full 496 pages…