Alif the Unseen

When making this selection I checked my wish list and noticed two separate books were coincidentally by the same author. And at that time I had never heard of G. Willow Wilson. She rose to prominence writing Marvel comics, most notably the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel series that was later adapted for television. Clearly this was a sign. I presented both of her novels "The Bird King" and "Alif the Unseen" as options, and Rym selected the latter.

"Alif the Unseen" is a Middle Eastern cyberpunk adventure. That description alone is enough to convince me to read it. Did I also mention it won a ton of awards? The description of the novel on the publisher's web site reads:

Alif the Unseen is a masterful debut novel, an enchanting, incredibly timely adventure tale worthy of Neil Gaiman. In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker protects watched groups from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble—until he falls in love with the wrong woman and unleashes a forbidden text thought to be written by the jinn.

I would be very surprised if somehow this book doesn't go over well.