Lead Review

  • Book: Desert Skies, Rebel Souls
  • Location: Egypt, Israel, Jordan
  • Author: M P Tonnesen

Review Author: tripfiction

Location

Content

3.75*

The novel starts out in late Summer of 1997 and Olivia is off on her travels. First stop is Israel to work on a Kibbutz. Back in Copenhagen she has left her family, in particular mother (with whom she has a tricky relationship), her grandmother and her boyfriend Daniel, who has been welcomed into her family.

She hardly gets settled in the Kibbutz and falls for the charms of Chaim. He, however, is due to do military service (for nigh on three years) so the time they have together is short and precious. She soon makes short shrift of Daniel, leaving her to explore her relationship with her new beau. After Chaim’s departure, she sets off on further adventures to Jordan and Egypt in the company of other female travellers and has the usual issues of the middle eastern males’ wandering hands and eyes, border traumas as she passes between countries and finally a bomb explosion. She is summoned back home to Denmark and life begins to deal her a few blows.

This is very much a coming-of-age story, as Olivia finds her feet in the adult world. She gets herself a tiny tattoo, experiences a few run-ins with those around her and forges on with her explorations. Politics are never far from the table in this part of the world, wherever she travels. The author really enables her readers to ‘armchair travel’ to distant shores and evokes her chosen locations really well. It can at times read like a breathless travelogue and I think there was a little too much reliance on telling rather than showing. An easy read for anyone wishing to imbibe the feel of the Middle East, with a nice storyline.

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