My Arab Spring

#953
Title: My Arab Spring
Author: R. Zain
Publisher: Lulu.com
Country: [Replacement for Bahrain]
Year: 2012
108 pages

This self-published memoir/essay is certainly heartfelt at times, but I found it extremely confusing and much in need of further editing. The author describes, in somewhat to very abstract language, aspects of the Bahraini Arab Spring phenomenon. This leads into tales of her (I presume "her"--the author is "R." and the 1st person protagonist is "Sara") business entanglements with some unpleasant and problematic people, though this seems only marginally related to the financial upheaval accompanying the political unrest. There's a lot about the author's articles and Twitter posts that I couldn't follow because it again became too abstract and seemed to have documenting the problematic behavior of an employee as its focus. The sections in which the author/protagonist is trying to get to work, or pick up her daughter at school, or drive through checkpoints, seemed most relevant and were the most vivid and emotionally compelling sections. I come away from this having met my goal of learning more about Bahrain, but I could have learned much more if this had been more coherently presented.