Sushi for beginners by Marian Keyes,and Banat Al Riyadh,by Raja' Al Sane3.
The fact that I've been reading these two books at the same time forces me to think of the similarities between them.While this might not be a fair comparison,for a number of reasons.
To start with,the setting is awfully different.While the first takes place in Dublin,Ireland,the second takes place mostly in Riyadh,Saudi Arabia.And while the first author is an experienced novelist,in her forties, with around ten books in her name,the second is just starting,in her early twenties and this is her first book ever.Both ladies have a noticeable sense of humor,and write with a degree of cynicism,that amuse you and offer you the pleasure of light reading on an easy afternoon.Both books revolve around lives of women in their own cities.The characters are in a different age group too,both authors write about their own age groups,so while the Dublin girls are in their thirties and lead professional lives,the Riyadh girls are fresh out of college and starting out in the real world.I still haven't finished reading Keyes's Sushi,but am definitely enjoying it more than the other one.Banat Al Riyadh,has an interesting concept behind it,to view the lives of these girls through emails that the auther has been sending to a lot of saudis over a period of a few months,and this is something that I thought was very innovative and can be developped into a nice art form,but that hasn't been properly done.Ohoud wondered if it's worthy enough of being called a novel,and I think it isn't.I haven't felt that I really can relate to any of the characters,or the hapenings in their lives,I kept wondering which one was this and which one was that,and wether this is the one who got married or the one who met her lover in the mall.There is no clear plot to the story and I would have definitely enjoyed reading it much more as seperate e-mails or articles in a magazine or newspaper.

On the opposite,the other novel,though not really what you might call an intriguing,thought provoking read,but it is quite interesting to follow the characters around their lives.You feel how deeply you can relate to the characters,and how a small incident that might happen to one of them one morning, can take its toll on her for a few days ,without her knowing the reason she is feeling so uneasy, until she realizes it's this small incident that's been bothering her all this time.The author goes into this sort of detail that you feel you know each one of these girls and can actually predict what she's going to do next.

Another thing about Banat Al Riyadh novel,is that I read it with a lot of anticipation,expecting to know a lot more insider details about the lives of the saudi young,however,it hasn't added much to what we hear,and hasn't given me enough to believe or not to believe that this is the saudis lifestyles in this time and age.If you want controversy,you might want to read the older novel about saudi life:Princess,the True Story of Life behind Veil in Saudi Arabia,where the author Jean P. Sasson ,claims that a Saudi Princess asked her to tell her life story.That,I felt was full of controversial details whose authenticity I can't confirm.

As soon as I'm done with Sushi for Beginners,I will go back to Amin Maaloof's Samarkand,which I had started last month,and couldn't finish.That was a book that needs a little more time and concentration on historic events than those two,and time and concentration are two things that I did NOT have last month.On my priority list is also 3amarat Ya3koobian,that should also be good.