Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Guapa” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Guapa

Saleem Haddad

4.11 · Rating details · 2,568 ratings · 336 reviews

A debut novel that tells the story of Rasa, a young gay man coming of age in the Middle East

Set over the course of twenty-four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval. Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights w ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 368 pages

Published March 8th 2016 by Other Press

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Guapa, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

LGBT Reads 2016

41 books — 42 voters

Perking the Pansies - Jack and Liam move to Turkey by Jack Scott

LGBT in the Middle East

43 books — 52 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.11 ·

Rating details

· 2,568 ratings · 336 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Guapa

May 15, 2016 Roxane rated it liked it

Guapa is well worth reading. There is an exuberance and ragged energy to the prose I admired. Rasa is a young gay man in an "unnamed Arab country" who is grappling with a complicated relationship, his grandmother, living a closeted life, and his place in the political turmoil his country is facing. There are many powerful observations throughout but at times, the novel was just so didactic, so, "let me teach you," and storytelling fell to the wayside. The plot also just sort of falls apart towar ...more

flag 64 likes · Like · see review

Sep 07, 2019 Thomas rated it really liked it

Shelves: own-physical, lgbtq, realistic-fiction, adult-fiction

A raw, emotional novel that follows Rasa, a gay Arab man living in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The novel begins with Rasa’s grandmother finding him in bed with another man and literally screaming in horror. For the rest of Guapa, we follow Rasa throughout a 24-hour period filled with political and personal unrest: both the uprising of the Arab Spring protests and the uprising of Rasa’s heart when he realizes he may never be with the man he loves. In interspersed flashbacks, we see Rasa’s A raw, emotional novel that follows Rasa, a gay Arab man living in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The novel begins with Rasa’s grandmother finding him in bed with another man and literally screaming in horror. For the rest of Guapa, we follow Rasa throughout a 24-hour period filled with political and personal unrest: both the uprising of the Arab Spring protests and the uprising of Rasa’s heart when he realizes he may never be with the man he loves. In interspersed flashbacks, we see Rasa’s tumultuous childhood growing up in a household rife with conflict, his time studying in the United States as a college student, as well as the development of his queer identity. By the novel’s end, we gain a deep sense of Rasa’s character, someone courageous and strong yet deeply troubled and hurt.

I loved this book because it details a queer experience so underrepresented in the gay literature, one of a man of color in a non-Western country. Haddad does a masterful job of detailing the culturally-bounded conflicts in Rasa’s life. He writes about Rasa’s youthful idealization of America followed by his disillusionment when he realizes the racism in our country, how Rasa sometimes struggles with feeling too Arab and other times struggles with feeling too American, and the multifaceted stigma he experiences as a gay Arab man. There’s such a real, painful, and powerful force to Saleem Haddad’s writing in Guapa, I really felt like I was with Rasa when he went through all of his challenges and traumas. Obviously as someone born and raised in the United States and as an Asian American, I will never know his lived experience exactly. Still, Haddad makes Rasa’s emotional pain so compelling and raw, I wanted to comfort him and hold him and give him a safe space to process. While it took me a little time to adjust to Haddad’s writing style, I so thoroughly appreciated how he held nothing back in his narrative voice and showed the true depth of Rasa’s feelings.

My only constructive critique of Guapa is that I felt that there were a lot of unresolved threads in Rasa’s character. So much happened to him: abandonment by his mother, borderline abusive/abusive behavior from his grandmother, having his heart broken by the man he loved, etc. I recognize my desire for more resolution or at least more internal growth and processing may stem from my bias as a therapist. I also recognize that Guapa gives us a snapshot of a very specific portion of Rasa’s life, so maybe the processing and healing will come later. Still, so much happened to him and I wanted just a bit more. (Also, maybe I just wanted to see him more fully get over Taymour, a noncommittal uncommunicative jerk who was never good enough for Rasa tbh, because of my own love for stories about getting over men who don’t deserve us. Anyway.)

Other aspects of Guapa I loved: Haddad having Rasa critique the United States and its unfettered capitalism, Rasa’s beautiful friendship with Maj, and overall intersectionality placed at the forefront of the novel. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in the experiences of queer men of color, who don’t mind a messy narrator who often throws himself into activism as a way to cope with his trauma and emotions. Guapa reminded me of Speak No Evil and Slant , two other great books I’ve read recently that center queer men of color, in addition to a couple of my favorites Picture Us in the Light and More Happy Than Not . I only hope for more queer people of color representation, please send any recommendations my way! And thank you to Saleem Haddad for writing this book. ...more

flag 55 likes · Like · see review

Feb 23, 2016 Naz (Read Diverse Books) rated it liked it

Review can also be found in my blog: http://wp.me/p7a9pe-jh

Guapa is the kind of book I am always open to reading and also the kind of book I root for to succeed. When I hear about a new novel that illuminates the experiences of nonwhite, non-western LGBT people, I want to spread the word. So when I got a chance to read a copy of Guapa before release, I was thrilled!

The narrative follows Rasa, a young gay man who lives in an unnamed Arab country steeped in political turmoil. He returns from Ameri Review can also be found in my blog: http://wp.me/p7a9pe-jh

Guapa is the kind of book I am always open to reading and also the kind of book I root for to succeed. When I hear about a new novel that illuminates the experiences of nonwhite, non-western LGBT people, I want to spread the word. So when I got a chance to read a copy of Guapa before release, I was thrilled!

The narrative follows Rasa, a young gay man who lives in an unnamed Arab country steeped in political turmoil. He returns from America with a college education that doesn’t appear to offer many benefits in his home country, and in the end joins a couple of friends in starting a small, floundering translation company. His mother ran away from an unhappy marriage long ago and his father has been dead for over a decade. This leaves his grandmother, Teta, as his only family and for years she was the moral compass through which Rasa saw the world. Unfortunately, Rasa soon discovered that living under Teta’s hyper-traditional regime was stifling.

Thankfully, Rasa had Guapa, the titular bar that he and some of his friends liked to frequent; it proved to be a sanctuary where men who love men and women who love women can be themselves in a world that doesn’t allow them to do either.

As the story begins, we meet Rasa soon after Teta finally uncovers his secret when she finds him in bed with another man. But it wasn’t just any man: it was Taymour, the love of his life and only source of happiness in his bleak existence. This discovery summons forth a strong sense of “eib,” or shame, hammered into him by his grandmother — the shame of doing something forbidden and the fear and anxiety that comes with wondering what other people will think. This idea of shame is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Ultimately, Rasa must either reject this notion or live a life devoted to avoiding his true self.

Although I enjoyed the novel overall, I never reached the point of genuinely caring for and understanding Rasa and the small cast of characters. I believe my feelings of detachment came from the vague and unnamed setting and political events that comprised the world of this novel.

The author has gone on to say in interviews that he purposefully set the story in unnamed Arab country because he didn’t want his novel to be seen as an anthropological study of one specific country and that the unknown nature of the setting would allow the story to take on a metaphorical nature. I understand and respect his idea. I also understand that as a person from a mixed racial background (his background is Palestinian, Muslim, Iraqi, Lebanese, German, and Christian), he knows what it’s like to not wholly belong to one place or country and Guapa appropriately reflects that feeling. However, as a reader I wanted to understand Rasa and his world on a deeper level. The unnamed Arab country experiencing vaguely described political turmoil never felt real to me and so I felt permanently detached from Rara’s story. I felt like a spectator to a narrative that never felt quite authentic, which was personally what I was looking for and didn’t allow me to enjoy the story fully.

There is much to like about Guapa as well. Chiefly, I enjoyed the sharp, eloquent, and fast-paced writing. The subject matter was also simultaneously refreshing and familiar– reading about the life and struggles of a young gay Arab man is not something I get to do every day, yet Rasa’s story is one that LGBT people can relate to. This novel also serves to further expand the idea of what it means to be gay, to be a gay man, and to be a gay man in a Muslim country, which is important work. For that, I am thankful to Saleem Haddad. ...more

flag 31 likes · Like · see review

Apr 08, 2017 Snotchocheez rated it really liked it

3.5 stars

I was really rooting for Saleem Haddad's novel Guapa to deliver sometbing remarkable, and, for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. Though I'm not gay, or Arab, I had a feeling this story of a gay man in his late twenties dealing with the shame (or Quranic eib) attendant with his sexual urges, in an unnamed (but almost certainly an unstable post-'Arab Spring' Muslim-majority) nation was at times quite gripping. Half the story was told in flashback with our sexually-repressed protagoni ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Apr 07, 2019 Katerina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

So good that I don't want to share it with anyone. ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

Mar 14, 2016 Jesse marked it as to-read

Shelves: queer-lit

Very curious after reading a thoughtful interview with Haddad over at Muftah.org:

"I filled the book with references to various Arabic and English novels, echoing and alluding to seminal works that shaped my own identity. So in my novel you’ll find echoes to writers that I admired, works that I grew up reading and trying to fit myself into: Colm Toibin’s ‘Story of the Night’, James Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room’, Andre Aciman’s ‘Call Me By Your Name’, Gore Vidal’s ‘City and the Pillar’, and Waguih G ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Feb 03, 2016 Penny Schmuecker rated it it was amazing

As a Western reader, I feel there is much about life in the Middle East that is still shrouded in mystery. Recently books like Excellent Daughters by Katherine Zoepf and The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg have allowed me a look at the lives of women in these countries but little has been written about the lives of gay men and women living in the Middle East.

Guapa by Saleem Haddad is a thought-provoking novel told from the viewpoint of Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Middle Ea As a Western reader, I feel there is much about life in the Middle East that is still shrouded in mystery. Recently books like Excellent Daughters by Katherine Zoepf and The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg have allowed me a look at the lives of women in these countries but little has been written about the lives of gay men and women living in the Middle East.

Guapa by Saleem Haddad is a thought-provoking novel told from the viewpoint of Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Middle East country. The story opens as Teta, Rasa’s grandmother and the woman who raised him, discovers Rasa and his lover, Taymour, in bed together. Teta has instilled a sense of eib, shame, in Rasa and he has spent much of his life with that idea in his mind.

For the next 24 hours, as Rasa flees the apartment he shares with Teta to sort out the many conflicts he faces, we see glimpses of Rasa’s life. We learn that his mother, unhappy with being unable to live the life she wanted in this Arab country, left Rasa and his father. Soon after, Rasa’s father dies from cancer, leaving Rasa to be raised by Teta. Upon graduation from high school, Rasa attends college in America, and though initially lonely, he meets people who instill in him a sense of political activism that he takes with him when he returns home. We are introduced to his friend, Maj, a drag-queen and revolutionary who is committed to change in spite of being beaten and jailed for his lifestyle. We also see the sense of despair among his friends at Guapa, the bar where Rasa and his peers meet. Once hopeful about the street revolution they were fighting, it has become evident that the changes they had hoped for have vanished. The government remains strong and only the memory of hope remains.

As day becomes night, Rasa attends the wedding of his lover, Taymour, and meets friends from his past. There, too, he finds complacency among his friends and Rasa leaves the wedding questioning everything he thought he knew about himself, his relationship with Taymour, and the rest of the world. In fact, each encounter in that 24 hour period has led Rasa on a journey to discover who he is and how he has become the person he is. He needs only to know how he can move forward.

I loved this book and would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in reading about cultural differences but also those who know that loving someone transcends cultural taboos.
Thank you to NetGalley and to the author for allowing me an ARC of this novel.
...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Jan 18, 2020 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Recommended to Jenny (Reading Envy) by: Yanira

Shelves: middle-east-2020, audiobook, read2020, location-kuwait

Guapa was recommended to me by a guest on the Reading Envy Podcast a few years ago (thanks Yanira!) - Rasa is a young gay man in an unnamed Middle Eastern country on the brink of revolution. The story starts with his grandmother catching him in bed with another man and then goes back to tell the story of his parents, his American education (and how he struggled with Muslim and Arab identity in the states), and the underground bar Guapa which is a haven, most of the time.

I agree with some friend ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Jan 23, 2017 Ali Adenwala rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt

My review of this book which I wrote for a magazine recently:

The Western vision of the queer Arab is undeniably bleak, and most often, it is a sensationalized slideshow of relentless suffering: bodies thrown from high rooftops, mass arrests, a public hanging. In Saleem Haddad’s debut novel Guapa, however, the most violently crucifying moments are not of stonings or communal exile, but rather the stabs of shame after a lover’s touch, and the terror of an eye staring out of a keyhole.

The novel My review of this book which I wrote for a magazine recently:

The Western vision of the queer Arab is undeniably bleak, and most often, it is a sensationalized slideshow of relentless suffering: bodies thrown from high rooftops, mass arrests, a public hanging. In Saleem Haddad’s debut novel Guapa, however, the most violently crucifying moments are not of stonings or communal exile, but rather the stabs of shame after a lover’s touch, and the terror of an eye staring out of a keyhole.

The novel follows Rasa – a gay Arab man living in an unnamed Middle-Eastern country – throughout a single day of his life. Working as an interpreter for Western journalists, he acts as a bridge between East and West – simultaneously, in doing so, he reveals a minefield of cultural misunderstanding and misinterpretation, and a futility of communication even language cannot diffuse. Bordering on mania, his fixation with language is not simply an occupation but a personal crusade, a battleground for identity, as he searches tirelessly for a definable selfhood, the most perfect and absolute classification: “gay”, “louti”, “sodomite”, “khawal”, none of these seem to fit for Rasa
Always hanging over him is the inescapable spectre of alienation, navigating life as a gay man in an Arab society; then, in flashbacks, as an Arab in a post-9/11 America; later, as an idealistic revolutionary among those who have given up on liberation; finally, as a parentless young man, on the verge of losing his lover Taymour.

Despite the importance of Rasa’s story, however, LGBT struggle is placed a much broader socio-political backdrop of national suffering, as a failed revolution unleashes a new wave of regime repression and extremist terror attacks. Rasa’s best friend Maj, resident drag-queen of the city’s underground gay club (the titular Guapa), tells him that the regime “preys […] on the downtrodden and oppressed, on the poor, on women and refugees and illegal immigrants”; he reminds him that they are the lucky ones, since they “speak fluent English” and live in the rich part of the city, making them “too costly to kill” despite their vilified sexual identity. Here, Haddad explores the multidimensional, often ambiguous, role of privilege, and the intense subjectivity of experience in a region that is often painting with a single brush.

Intertexuality plays a large role in Haddad’s novel. Scattered throughout Guapa are nods to works of seminal LGBT fiction, from Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room’ to Vidal’s ‘The City and the Pillar’, embedding the themes of his own novel into an established literary legacy.

Perhaps more interesting, nonetheless, is the way Guapa grapples with post-colonial theory, interweaving strands of thought from academics such as Joseph Massad, Amin Maalouf, even Foucault, into a debate about cultural identity, a theme that haunts the narrative as Rasa contemplates the implications of his own history. Is the notion of a ‘queer Arab’ simply a product of “the Western imagination exported onto the colonial world”? Is ‘queerness’ a rigidly Western structure imposed on the East? Is the pre-colonial experience of sexuality – fluid, chaotic, and free from classification – more desirable? As Haddad notes, in the Middle East “the notion of publicly coming out rings hollow in a culture where who you share your bed with is a private matter”, where homosexuality operates in a different cultural context, and where many have sex with the same gender without ever needing to label themselves as ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’. Or, rather, is this simply a mythical delusion, one that pivots on the notion of a romanticized utopian past? Haddad never comes to a conclusive answer, but he raises many important questions.

In The Myth of Queer Arab Life, Haddad asks us:

“Who owns queer Arab bodies? Is it the authoritarian regimes who trample on queer bodies for moral legitimacy, the jihadists who burnish their religious credentials by tossing these bodies off the highest towers, the western human rights groups who enforce their own narratives to ‘save’ these bodies, [… or] the neoconservatives who shake dead queer bodies in front of their constituents to justify wars and occupations?”

Guapa is Haddad’s attempt to take back his body and the bodies of millions, to wrestle control over it and recontexualise it into a corpus of nuance, truth, and complexity. It remains a much need testimony of Arab self-representation and self-definition, deconstructing the delusion of a monolithic cultural experience, while defying the prevailing view of the Arab minority – helpless, silent, and waiting.
...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Jun 11, 2016 Tim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels, middle-east

I saw a quote a few days ago: “The Arab world is as complex and as diverse and messed up and great as anywhere else in the world” – from Hamed Sinno, singer for a well-known Arab band called Mashrou Leila. He said this to CNN as he’s been asked to comment a lot recently given that he’s a fairly “visible” gay Arab born to a Muslim family. The quote was telling as it was a follow up to his observation that “white singers” are never asked to explain their culture, but Arabs are usually asked to spe I saw a quote a few days ago: “The Arab world is as complex and as diverse and messed up and great as anywhere else in the world” – from Hamed Sinno, singer for a well-known Arab band called Mashrou Leila. He said this to CNN as he’s been asked to comment a lot recently given that he’s a fairly “visible” gay Arab born to a Muslim family. The quote was telling as it was a follow up to his observation that “white singers” are never asked to explain their culture, but Arabs are usually asked to speak collectively in Western contexts.

This idea of the generalized other is one of the many themes in this book. I picked it up and started reading it just one day before the attacks in Orlando, which now has many examining homosexuality and its relation to Islam, religion, the Middle East, and even conservatism in American contexts. It’s remarkable when even the director of CAIR in the US speaks openly about homophobia and Islamophobia coming from the same place of oppression.

Haddad’s story of Rasa resonated on a number of levels, but particularly around those of identity, authenticity and alienation. Identity in the sense that as Rasa begins to discover his true self he’s faced with the corresponding knowledge that he doesn’t fit anywhere – he’s restricted in the West as an Arab and in the Arab world as a homosexual. As to the authentic, it’s interesting to note that those who are pushed to the margins in society are normally the most adept at seeing through bullshit. Rasa’s politics, social standing and even relationship with his family shows how tired he is of those who remove the soul of the human from what it means to be alive. From his anger at the abuses of government to his contempt for the social displays of the upper classes we return to this idea that all oppression is interconnected and those who feel it in one respect can (and should) empathize with those who genuinely experience it anywhere.

Guapa takes place in an unnamed Arab city, but it has the feeling of Amman combined with the politics of Cairo. Highly recommended read on a number of levels.
...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

May 01, 2019 Malia rated it really liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction

Guapa is an interesting book, because it is not set in a named country, which I think was a smart move on the author's part, and yet, it is very specific about Muslim culture. The story is told in a 24 hour frame, though fleshed out considerably with flashbacks, which add a lot of roundness to the protagonist. I did feel that all the other characters remained a little hazy, but maybe that was intentional. This book reminded me a lot of Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, which has stayed in my mind a goo ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Feb 03, 2016 Atiaf Alwazir rated it it was amazing

Few writers can describe stories of marginalization in the Middle East while simultaneously breaking away from stereotypes. Saleem has done that beautifully in his novel.

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Sep 15, 2016 Sofia rated it really liked it

Shelves: 4-5-stars, eagerly-read, 2016

4.5 stars

Haddad gives us a tense twenty four hours with Rasa. And for us to get the Rasa we are seeing now he also gives us Rasa in the past so that we can understand how present Rasa came to be. So we see him grow up, loose his parents, go to America, come back, revolt, fall in love, make good and bad decisions, (view spoiler) ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Jul 03, 2020 BookChampions rated it it was amazing

Shelves: coming-of-age, contemporary-literature

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Reading the debut novel *Guapa*, I was reminded of a rose. The narrative, which essentially takes place over the course of a single day, unfolds like that budded flower. Memories peel back like petals, and as we read on, we sink more deeply into the narrative of Rasa, a young queer man in an unnamed Middle Eastern town. After his grandmother peeks through the keyhole of his bedroom and finds him with his lover, he must come to terms with an identity he no longer want ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Jun 28, 2018 mindful.librarian ☀️ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: words-between-worlds, lgbtqia, adult-reads

There are books that enter my life and humble me so thoroughly that I don't feel like my voice has a right to review them. So I won't attempt that. Know that this book broke my heart, enlightened me, and like almost no other book I have read lately........put me so solidly in my female/cis/liberal/White/American place and reminded me just how little I have to say about the issues put forth in this story. ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2016 Seth rated it it was amazing

A really authentic read that I couldn't recommend more. Rasa is a deeply dimensional character and the novel explores many subjects from his very unique perspective. I've been looking for a novel with a gay male protagonist that feels genuine; this is not a dramatic flair-up of carefully hand-picked events and chance meetings. This feels real.

Everyone is given a set of semi-random choices in life; everyone makes those choices and finds themselves on a path that was undeniably self-directed. Whe ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Dec 11, 2020 Smitha Murthy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, favorites, relationships, romance

This has to be one of the best books I have read this year. Deft in its storytelling and rich in its pain, this is a debut novel that demands to be read, loved, and gifted. This is the book to all of us who think ‘diversity’ is merely a tag on our profile. To all of us who think we ‘know’ the human condition. To all of us who think that love is a shape to be constrained in our thoughts, and not our heart.

I was lost in its world. I think I emerged with a daze. And a fierce desire to reimagine th ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Apr 04, 2019 Shawn Mooney (Shawn The Book Maniac) marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: recommended-on-litsy, reading-envy-podcast-recommends

This one just wasn’t for me. I found the writing quite annoying, overly didactic, and whiny. Such an important story, but not told in a way that worked for me at all. Bailed just shy of page 40.

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Apr 18, 2016 Daniel Pereira rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, e-book, lgbt

I don't write reviews lately. When I finish a book, life is so fast-paced that I don't find the time to think deeply about it and try to express my feelings toward it. But this one was different.

After reading a bunch of Stephen King books in a row, I saw this one on a Buzzfeed Newsletters about books to read in 2016. I picked it up and started reading it.

And I was really touched by it. As a person who knows almost nothing about the middle eastern crisis and the Arabic world in general, this boo ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Jan 24, 2016 Tim rated it it was amazing

Guapa is a great book. Above all else it is a story of marginalisation, of how in all its forms marginalisation is one shared malaise. And yet the author doesn't shy away from unpicking how those suffering one or more kinds of oppression, instead of forging common bonds, all too often themselves play a part in the marginalisation of others. This is one of several tragic layers in a story often told with bitter wit, about a man, Rassa, and the society in which he lives, both of whom seem on the b ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 12, 2017 Christine rated it really liked it

Shelves: debut-novels

I loved this book and would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in reading about cultural differences. And anyone who has loved. I particularly enjoyed this reading as a Westerner; it reminded me that other parts of the world are vastly different from my normal, everyday life and experiences.

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

May 03, 2020 Kurt rated it really liked it

I was smitten with GUAPA, a queer Arab Spring novel. Haddad layered the personal and the political so much that it became impossible to disentangle Rasa's life from the nation's. As Rasa navigates his queerness, Arabness, and revolutionary politics in both the U.S. and his home country—always stuck between one eib (shame) and another—the nation, too, finds itself at war between the eibs of authoritarianism and Islamism. Haddad's character is always trying to resolve the binaries he's caught up i ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 15, 2016 Neil rated it it was amazing

This is a really impressive novel. I can't think of the last book that I've read that's so full of turmoil--romantic, interpersonal, familial, and political. Rasa's struggle, which seems to grow in magnitude as the reader learns more about him, is not finished by the end of this book, but the novel has gotten across the complexity and the sheer thorniness of the many challenges that he faces. Rasa is a man who has had it with the pretense that society requires of us--whether around being an Arab ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2016 Nick Seeley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

An extraordinary coming-of-age novel.

"Guapa" encompasses a day in the life of Rasa, a young gay man in an unnamed Middle Eastern country during the turbulence of the Arab Spring. His path winds from his family's upper-middle-class home, where his family is on the verge of discovering his secret relationship with another young man, to the city's poverty-stricken suburbs, where the embers of revolution are catching fire, to the police stations where regime thugs brutalize and intimidate dissident ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2016 Yanira rated it it was amazing

I'm not sure where to start with this book, because it's a book that stays with you for a long time. It's a book about politics, about love, and that's so hard to do in one novel. Haddad is a master storyteller. My heart broke in every page into million pieces. I wanted a happy ending (whatever that means). I rooted for Rasa. I wanted happiness for him. But, I think in the end, he got something better.

I cannot wait to read another book by this author. This is an important book. This is not a po ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 07, 2018 George K. Ilsley rated it really liked it

Shelves: gay, fiction

It's stressful to read this book because it reminds one of personal horrors — the all consuming fear that the world will collapse if one's darkest secret becomes known. Much of the world, for one reason or another, lives with this stress buried in their bodies and souls. All of this to say that Guapa can be difficult to read because of the jagged experience of sharp edges buried in tender recesses. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 09, 2016 J.P. rated it really liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, fiction

Wonderful. A slightly messy, overly sentimental and sometimes pedantic first novel, that is also passionate and moving.

What the Western gay novel used to be before we lossed something in both wide ranging acceptance and quite a bit of assimilation.

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Apr 18, 2016 Ben rated it it was amazing

I had high hopes for this book, and it didn't disappoint. Really, really good. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 13, 2017 Cameron Sant rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lgbqa, real-world-fiction

Cameron's lightning if-I-write-a-full-review-my-phone-will-delete-it-anyway haiku review:

Not just a closet
novel. Intersectional,
lovely, important. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 01, 2016 Curtis rated it really liked it

Shelves: lgbt, netgalley, fiction, read-in-2016

Rasa's life has changed dramatically overnight. Last night, his grandmother caught him in bed with his lover, Taymour. Tonight, Taymour is getting married to a woman. And one of his best friends, Maj, is missing, likely arrested sometime during the night. None of these are things he can be open about. And even if he could, his grandmother isn't speaking to him, and she's the only family he has. Beyond his personal struggles, the political situation in his country is getting worse. As a translato Rasa's life has changed dramatically overnight. Last night, his grandmother caught him in bed with his lover, Taymour. Tonight, Taymour is getting married to a woman. And one of his best friends, Maj, is missing, likely arrested sometime during the night. None of these are things he can be open about. And even if he could, his grandmother isn't speaking to him, and she's the only family he has. Beyond his personal struggles, the political situation in his country is getting worse. As a translator for foreign journalists, he gets called out on a job that puts him face-to-face with one of the leaders of the resistance. And with everything going on in his life, he can't help reflecting more and more on who he is and who he wants to be. He spent time in the United States, a land of "freedom." He came back home, and for a while he had hope for his people. But what does it mean to be free? And who gets to dictate how another person should live? If there will always be a power majority, what hope does the minority have?
Although the premise of this story seems simple, it's a rather deep read. I found myself thinking and reflecting quite often while I was reading. Rasa is an intelligent young man, and he's engaged in the world around him. He knows that some parts of his situation are beyond his control. He also knows that he needs to find a way to live with that if he's going to stop himself from breaking. While he lacks support in some areas of his life, he does have support in others. And maybe it's those others that need his focus.

I don't want to spoil too much, but there is one specific point in the book that I need to comment on. When Rasa is thinking back to his time in the United States, he describes his thoughts on being open about his sexuality. He mentions that he could choose to live openly. He could show up places and say he's proud of who he is. He could pretend to be comfortable in his skin. But that would be a lie. He wasn't comfortable. He was still trying to come to terms with who he is. His other option would be to make it known that he experienced discomfort and shame. But that would lead to people labeling him a victim of religion and society. Neither of those felt right to him, so he chose neither option.

This point got me thinking and reflecting. I sometimes have to remind people that coming out stories are still relevant. It can be easy to dismiss them as outdated as more people are coming out at younger ages. While some parts of society are becoming more accepting and open, that doesn't mean everyone feels comfortable being out. And some people are hesitant to speak up about it because it has nothing to do with religion or society. Coming out to yourself can be a difficult process on its own. And coming to terms with that can be difficult, even without any outside influences. So it's important to remember that there are all kinds of reasons that people struggle. And it's equally important that we tell and share those stories.

I also appreciated that this story focused on a young man from the Middle East. I almost never see LGBT stories that take place in that part of the world. And we need to have stories where people can find themselves. Just as much as we need stories where people can learn about those different from themselves.

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Videos About This Book

Add a comment

Genres

Fiction

161 users

LGBT

102 users

GLBT > Queer

63 users

Contemporary

27 users

LGBT > Gay

26 users

Novels

12 users

Literature

9 users

Adult Fiction

8 users

Queer > Queer Lit

8 users

Cultural > International

6 users

See top shelves…

About Saleem Haddad

Saleem Haddad

191 followers

Saleem Haddad is a writer and aid worker. He was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father, and has lived in Jordan, Cyprus, Canada and the U.K. He has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and other international organisations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, and Egypt. In addition to writing, he currently advises international ...more

Books by Saleem Haddad

More…

42 New Books to Read this Pride Month

This June, as we observe LGBTQ Pride—the annual celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning communities—we...

Trivia About Guapa

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Guapa

“Digging through my roots to understand the way my branches grew.” — 3 likes

“In America the gay world touched my life at the margins, though references and images and occasional conversations with men and women who celebrated their homosexuality with pride. As far as I could see there was nothing to be proud about. There was only pain, humiliation and shame. If I were to join this group, I would have to act proud and hide my feelings of rejection and loneliness. If I were to show these men and women that I was terrified for my future, I would be regarded as misguided or a victim of Islam or Arabness. But if there was one thing I wsa certain of it was that there was nothing misguided about my feelings, and I did not feel that Islam or my Arabness was to blame. If I were to join this group, I would simply go from the repressiveness of secrecy to the repressiveness of pride. I didn't despise my shame. I had no reason to do so. My shame illuminated my intense attachment to the world, my desire to be connected with others.” — 3 likes

More quotes…