Read With Us: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Promo Post

As you know by now, our Summer 2023 RWU selection is The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. Kym and Bonny have both already written posts promoting this book and now it’s my turn to do the same.

Going last is hard, friends.

But let me just say, this is not an easy book to read but reading it is very much worth your time. The narrator, Maali Almedia has, quite literally, woken up dead in a bureaucratic nightmare. He soon learns that he has 7 moons to set some things right so that he can get on with his afterlife. Those things include figuring out what happened to him and also finding the photos that he took that will expose a national scandal in Sri Lankan government. And, he has to do all this while dodging ghosts and a sinister medium and others who are trying to stop him.

This is comedy mixed with tragedy at it’s finest and there is a lot to unpack in this story. Questions about the afterlife. The inhumane ways we treat others. The recognition that ultimate power corrupts. It’s innovative and detailed, brutal and tragic, and ambitious. It’s not without it’s flaws, in my opinion, as I think it bogs down a bit in the middle and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but overall it’s an epic and important read.

I hope you will choose to read this and join us for our discussion on Tuesday, September 19th at 7pm.

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This Post Has 5 Comments

  2. I’m looking forward to this read in August (closer to our discussion time…so I can [hopefully] remember what I’ve read).

  3. As I read this, I understood why Margene read it so many times… it is that good… as well as there is so much to unpack in Maali’s Seven Moons… so much! I plan on reading it again closer to our RWU date.

    Thank you for this great synopsis, Carole!

  4. I’m about one-third of the way into it but have decided to delay the rest of my reading until closer to our discussion. I want to be able to keep track of all the characters and remember what happened for our discussion!

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