1st half Shadows of The Pomegranate Tree

The first half of this book was actually very difficult for me to get through and understand, I found myself re-reading a couple of sections in order just to understand what was going on. One of the things we touched on in class today that was very confusing at first for me was the fact that some characters have more then one name in this book. This originally made it kind of hard for me to understand who was who in the story and who the author was talking at a certain time. Once I figured out who Tariq Ali was talking about in this instances I was able to put the pieces together and understand the book a whole lot better. To me this book is very interesting and I am glad that we have to read it because it is not a book that I would normally pick up just because I wanted to read something, though I find myself looking up some words every now and then.
I found myself thinking about how I could relate to this book, in order to help myself understand it some more. I found myself returning to that thought that even though the characters in this book may be culturally different from myself as well as others reading this book also, I couldn't help but think that just a Zuhra I had myself discovered secrets from other people even family members that my parents did not want me to know.  Even though I find myself relating to the book in this aspect there is still so much in this book that is foreign to me or that I can not relate to. Speaking for myself I can say that this book is opening my eyes up to so much stuff that can happen in other cultures as well as interesting me to look up things that I normally wouldn't.