Cleopatra

What I really loved about this book was how it felt like I was sitting down with a friend - who happened to be a dead queen of Egypt - having a cup of tea, while she was spilling all the tea about her life. It felt both modern and ancient, because the characters, and Cleopatra herself especially, felt so alive. I could understand all of their motivations and how they interacted and the narration was simply just beautifully handled. I also felt like the book was very well researched. I already knew a fair bit about Cleopatra's history going into this book, and all the points I knew about, were covered. Sometimes it even pulled in variations in interpretation of certain events and had the narrator speak to the existence of differing accounts.

Cleopatra was one of the most powerful woman in history, but she is surrounded by a lot of mystery and secrecy. Now, she finally tells her life story in her own words. El-Arifi masterfully and poetically tells Cleopatra's fascinating story, and has Cleopatra often address the reader with commentary about her history and activities, that historians and authors got wrong, and I liked it a lot. I felt really close to her, and even though, we know how this ends, I was still very invested.