The place is Egypt; the time is the summer of 1984. A young child is narrating the story and describing the conditions in Egypt and the schools. It is brutally hot. For the next three decades, we watch her as she goes through life in a changing Egypt. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 and Mubarak ascended to that throne. Many of the child’s relatives are anti-Israel and anti-American. In Egyptian schools they learn to resent Israel and to blame the Jews for their troubles. Her father is anti-Israel. She attends the English school. It is a more varied education with less vacation time. They are Muslims, but while her mother seems to practice her religion quietly, and seems more open to a secular lifestyle, her father seems more deeply religious and angrier with Israel and the historic governmental changes. The different religious groups intimidate each other as each new leader with a differing philosophy ascends to power. In this brief, little book, there is deep insight on every page as the child views and questions the world around her. Her dialogue and unanswered questions, which are asked without guile or prejudice, raise the reader’s consciousness and force the reader to think about the culture and the Middle East more thoughtfully. Through the eyes of this nameless child and her interactions with various relatives, friends, and those she works with as she grows older, through the conversations with those who pass through life with her, we watch Egypt as it morphs from a country under one rule and than another and another until today, with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi currently at its helm. Although the philosophies and ruling styles changed from government to government, from extreme to moderate, from religious to a bit more secular, again and again, things still seemed to really remain the same for the Egyptians, but not for those in power who grabbed every advantage for themselves and their compadres, locking up those who did not comply with their new regime and its methods. So, the lifestyles of average Egyptians did not advance very much, although, as time passed, they were more able to take advantage of modern technology, there were more TV stations, and cell phones, but still, they continued to suffer through shortages of electricity. They were still arrested as political prisoners with each change of leader, often not officially charged, and certainly there was no transparency concerning the arrests regarding information to the families, nor were the prisoners offered a fair trial or adequate cell space. Even without the direct knowledge of the events that led to their imprisonment, there was an underlying message that they all understood and accepted, simply as their way of life. This was the way it was until it wasn’t. There’s was the world of dictatorship. On every page, the thoughts exploded and queried the reader, but the child grown into a woman rarely judged, and so, her input never seemed to truly become fully grown ideas for me, rather I was left to continually ponder the meaning of her message. With each regime change an idea blossomed, bloomed for awhile, was possibly rejected and then went underground until there was another change, perhaps more favorable to those ideas, when it would reemerge. The uncertainty of life there appears on every page, and so, this child, growing into an adult, seemed to remain the same to me. She was a non-combatant, she was passive, and she was watching her world change on the surface but remain the same underneath. She was an observer rather than a participant. Even as she filmed life around her, eventually anticipating, perhaps, a book, she remained fairly non-committal. I expected more of a reaction from her since her father was arrested when the government he supported, and in which he was involved, fell. He spent years in prison. They never visited him. The child, as an adult, visited her Baba herself when he was released from prison, a totally altered man. Oddly, decades after his arrest, we still know little about the reason why, and although the atmosphere in Egypt seemed a bit more forgiving, there remained a quiet unrest within his older generation, unrest which never grew into any action. Her mother became somewhat more outspoken and became an activist, but her beliefs were not consistent with her husband’s. She took to social media to spread her message. The book covers Egypt’s tumultuous history, its change of regimes, complete with revolts, attempted assassinations and government overthrows, revolutions, and even elections, but still, in spite of each change of government, ruler and philosophy, little change for the citizens seemed to occur. The only major change was the name of the dictator. Some rulers may have changed their philosophy a bit, some citizens may have as well, but basically, they all still lived in a world of uncertainty. The more things changed the more things seemed to remain the same for them; some different ideas and philosophies were tolerated, but there was still the possibility of free thought being someone’s downfall. The anti-Israel rhetoric that consistently blamed the Jews and their homeland, in one way or another, has never altered. It was reinforced in their schools, even after there was peace between the two countries. The peace was tenuous as was the lifestyle of the citizens depending on who sat at the head of the table. At the end, I felt like I had read an outline that the author wanted me to enhance, perhaps wanted me to fill in more details to complete her story, which was largely on the surface, but which provoked in-depth thoughtfulness for this read and should inspire others as well, to learn more about Egypt and its culture and people. ***Received this book as part of Library Thing Early Reviewer Program