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Ep. 1: The July War

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Ep. 1: The July War

By: Rabih Alameddine
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This coming of age story is set amid what the author calls the ‘traumatic and surreal’ experience of the July War in Beirut. Against the backdrop of war and its fallout, a young teenager faces smaller but no less intimidating personal conflicts, including his emerging sexuality, his relationship with his father, the aggressive attentions of a bully and a reluctant friendship with a refugee. Small and large scale devastations converge to contrast the unfairness, injustice and confusion of two very different battlefields.

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I was hoping for something special from this story. I'd have even settled for mediocre but entertaining. my only relief was how short it was. The narrator needs alot more practice and sounded like a sixth-former reading from a text book which makes an already uninspiring story stilted and jarring. Sadly I would suggest skipping this one

Boring shallow story

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This is the third short story of this series I've listened to and it doesn't get better. I was expecting great things from a Sunday Times competition but these stories are consistently dull and unoriginal..Not sure if that's due to a shortage of decent entries or a desperation to pick stories that appeal to the widest demographic. Bizarrely for an audible sponsored competition the narration and production is also very poor. The narrator of this story is supposed to be a Lebanese teenager but sounds like a kid that has been picked off the street from North London.

So disappointing

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Poor read clearly by the author or some unschooled in communicating words, but a well written story although the style is mundane - the language doesn’t trouble me nor the references to fellatio, if anything it has a humanising effect and anything that destroys Muslim/Arab stereotypes is most welcome.

Bad reading spoils good work

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Disappointed, dishgusted and surprised. Zdidntxaee any warnings of content but perhaps I was expecting more from this “supposed best seller”

Disgusting language

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