The Emperor's Babe

Rating:
Summary: and now for something completely different
Review: I bought this book with low expectation for both the poetry and the story. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. Emperor's Babe is sexy, stylish and just the most original book I've read in ages. The heroine is a tough little customer, a hip Afro Roman living in Londinium who meets the man of her dreams and loses everything else. By the time you come to last page I promise that you will be moved by her story.

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing lyrical prose -- and funny!!
Review: It's been a while since I've been knocked off my feet by a book in way The Emperor's Babe did. Maybe not since I read Rimbaud at highschool... Proverbs keep flying through my head when I want to describe the book: funny, intelligent, sophisticated, heart-warming, etc. etc. What struck me first (of course) was the verse. Steady two line most of the time, but changing pace in more intimate sections and by that changing atmosphere at once. The book is somewhat of a classic lyrical epic and bc of that rhythm it grips you from the first pair of lines, and (I have to say this) it swings!!

Second: the main character, Zuleika, is a welcome apparition in present-day literature. Zuleika is tough, smart and gets what she wants. No whining like Bridget J. or all the other 30-ish single women-books and definitely nothing of the "I've lived through it all" Oprah-books. Zuleika's got a certain sense of girl-power (sorry for that word) and that makes you love her from the start.

And then the story: London 211. It's dirty, rotten and sexy. But that's all I say, just go and read. And after that go and look for her first book "Lara". You won't be sorry...