As it seems to be the case for most readers, I came to this book because of the Man Booker International Prize, and for its depiction of Oman, a country I hadn't previously read a book from.

I was under the spell of this book from the beginning. Alharthi starts with three sisters as her focal point, but we get their POVs and SO many others -- suitors, husbands, neighbors, until it manages to take in so many different social classes, positions, ideologies. People embracing the social changes happening in Oman and those resisting it. Promotors of traditional values who treat women well, espousers of "modern" values who are misogynists and abusers behind closed doors.

I couldn't possibly sum up the plot or even the cast of characters. This unfolds non-linearly with flashbacks, broken memories, and dreams. Not for everyone, but I was entranced. ( )

I didn't love this, I just couldn't quite get fully into it really. I kept getting confused between the different generations and having to refer to the family tree, but even that is somewhat confusing. The structure of the novel is a little odd with some chapters by an authorial voice, and others by Abdallah. Having said that I enjoyed the writing, I liked learning a little more about Oman, and liked the contrasts of the difficulties faced by the different classes and generations of women. I suppose I felt it was trying to cover too much. ( )

Three daughters, Mayya, Asha, and Khawla, who grew up in a small town in Oman, get married and have children. In short chapters, switching among the women, their family members, and some of the villagers in third person while almost every other is Abdallah, Mayya's husband, in first person, we're given the story of their lives and history.

This was a complicated novel, made even more so by the format of the story. The timelines are one that begins with Mayya's marriage to Abdallah (all told in third person); the second is sometime in the future, Abdallah as a first-person narrator recounting his memories (which become strange and don't always appear reliable to me) of the same events. In addition, sometimes in the third-person storyline the memories of a character would tell us something about the past or the omniscient narrator would jump forward twenty years to tell us what happened later to a character. The translator's note praises the format, but I'm not convinced it served the story well. There are many characters and their relationships with each other, and the history of the slave trade, are important, and I found myself referencing the family tree often and wishing for a longer list of all the characters and their relationships, because I had trouble following it. I kept reading because it was, despite the complicated structure, really easy to read. The prose was straightforward, the chapters short, and I was at least mildly interested in learning what happened to the sisters in particular. I would have liked them to be fleshed out a little more, even, especially Khawla, whose story we get in glimpses and then suddenly get about a ten-year update in one chapter. The ending left me confused and unsettled. So on balance, while I'm not sorry I read it, I am hesitant to recommend it. ( )

Having no familiarity with Oman’s history, I enjoyed learning about how traditions, and issues of class and gender informed these characters lives. Alharthi is especially revealing when depicting how these characters make decisions and live their lives when their individual values conflict with societally assigned ones, and how the latter have changed over generations. While I liked Celestial Bodies, I do feel it is a work betrayed by its structure, and I would love to play with that.

I would love to have read it this way: combining all the chapters for one character, retaining their titles but organized chronologically. For example, there are 22 short chapters called "Abdallah" interspersed throughout the book's 58 chapters. Abdullah is arguably, if not functionally the main character--at least by dint of the fact that he has the most chapters. His chapters are also the only ones in first person, making it unclear who is telling the other stories. ( )

The story of 3 sisters living in Oman and their family lives. It might have been a good story, but it was so very disjointed, did not follow any sort of time line, and did not use quotation marks, that I was unable to follow. I think perhaps this was written in stream of consciousness. Surprised myself that I even finished. 247 pages ( )