To clarify, I did like this book but I would not be able to recommend it completely. something felt missing for me - I can't say exactly what. I felt as though the narrator kept starting and stopping, and I found very little to grab on to to care about when reading. However, I did enjoy the discussion of identity, culture and heritage, and it's definitely a perspective I'd like to hear more from.

I so wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get into it. I don't know if it was the story line or the writing style but unfortunately I just couldn't get into it. I think people in their 40's would prefer this rather than a young adult.

Nina Bouraoui writes about growing up between France and Algeria, about becoming a writer, and about being a very young woman exploring her sexuality in Paris during the 1980s. I loved, loved this novel. It’s hard to describe the effect of this torrent of beautiful prose that is formed by hope, hurt and history. One of my favourite novels that I’ve read this year.

It flows very well, I read it in one sitting. The unprecedented English heatwave was perfect for reading about sun-baked Algeria.

The prose is romantic but direct, which I like but it also fluctuates too seamlessly between Paris and Algiers, between the present and the past, you have to keep an eye on who, where, when. (I wasn't sure if this was down to the proof copy or if it was technique.)

The ideas never really settle anywhere either. There is a constant sense that we are building up to something, either in Algiers or Paris, but nothing ever really materialized, Maybe nothing was supposed to, but it was a strange effect, that it felt like something was about to happen but didn't.

It’s very light and airy read, it ebbs and flows like the shore. For something that touches on some heavy themes, it doesn't read so. The overarching theme is identity, autobiographical as the narrator is nameless and her life identical to the authors, and this overarching theme splits in two: national and sexual identity, and how they contradict one another at times.

It was a lovely read, but not too substantial. I don’t think I’ll be thinking about it for long.

This is a deeply moving work of “auto-fiction” told through the life experiences of its author, Nina Bouraoui. It combines the authors real life experiences growing up, but is a work of literary fiction in style and scope. Nina has lived a torn life, and one situated between two continents; Africa and Europe. She spent most of her childhood in Algeria where her Father was from before her Mother chose to move to Paris, because of the outbreak of Civil War. This toing and froing between two cultures, means that Nina struggles to come to terms with her identity, “France is an outfit I wear: Algeria is my skin, exposed to the sun and storms.”

The entire novel is told through vivid, first person narration. This may put some readers off, as there’s no typical story structure. However, I loved the sense of depth this created. The prose often reads as part poetry, part inner monologue of Nina’s thoughts, feelings and memories. I found it a harrowing read, as Nina never shies away from the honesty of her experience and the pain she has endured. In this day and age, we are so used to seeing peoples’ ‘real life’ experience through a filtered lens which often bears no reality, however, this novel strips it back to the bare bones. Thus, making it a moving depiction of the difficulties of coming of age, accepting oneself and learning how to live. It is a powerful portrayal of inner tournaments and the pain people go through during the process of accepting themselves.

Despite the novel lacking a traditional structure - it is divided loosely into four sections of memory which are used to account for the different periods in Nina’s life. These are: knowing, remembering, becoming and being. Each comment on her life at its different stages - from living in Algeria and witnessing its turbulence as a country, to beginning her new, independent life in Paris at the age of eighteen and toying with her sexuality. Due to this dual upbringing across continents - Nina grapples with her sexuality - she has been attracted to women for most of her life, however, accepting this has been her biggest struggle, “I want to know who I am, what I am made of, what I can hope for…”

Homosexuality is still illegal in Algeria today, which relates to the difficulties of not just Nina’s own acceptance of herself, but the society in which she grew up. In Paris, she feels freer to explore this, due to living in a more accepting, Western culture. She acknowledges this cultural and personal struggle vividly, “I’m a victim of my own homophobia” in which the reader is a witness, as Nina documents her first difficult experiences with love and the initial anxieties these bring.

Knowing, draws on Nina’s past experience in Algeria, as she accounts traumatic experiences of witnessing her Mother being sexually assaulted, and depicts the variable climate of Algeria which was going through civil unrest. I couldn’t help but feel this exposure must have impacted Nina’s conception of herself, which then impacted her attitudes towards her sexuality and ability to form relationships with women. She had to get over her own boundaries before those imposed on her from others.

Remembering, documents visions of her past which are mainly in Algeria. Despite the country’s beauty she remembers that, “violence is etched into the land, unending violence” and this struggle is symbolic in her own boundaries to self acceptance. Becoming, is the most ‘present’ aspect of this autobiography, as it follows Nina’s life as a young adult, living in Paris. She frequents a local, lesbian nightclub in the hope of finding love with other women. This is the most interesting part of the book, as it shows how her past struggles and different cultural upbringings shape her identity and coming to terms with herself. She goes up and down like a yo-yo between being proud of her sexuality and path in life, to feeling disgusted, “I’m nothing but a faggot” which demonstrates the tumultuous rage often experienced with coming of age sexuality. But, with an added distressing aspect - her home country of Algeria, would imprison her for displaying her love for women.

Being looks back on her life. This element shows herself starting to accept her identity and letting go of the past. She appears to have found happiness and self love, as a relationship with another woman blooms, “I am the same but I’ve changed, I’ve let go, I’m floating free on this waking dream….” The kind of self acceptance Nina finds, was relieving to read, after Nina’s continuous periods of self doubt. Finally, she appears to be content.

A stunning, autobiographical portrayal of the inner, psychological battle. Torn between two cultures and two ways of living, this documents Nina’s transition between hiding from the world and herself, and embracing it. Harrowing and dark at times, but also uplifting and beautiful.

All Men Want to Know uses dreamy, lyrical prose to unravel the loose thread of a personal history, blurring between Algeria and Paris in a confusing, yet oddly charming narrative that left me both baffled and enchanted.

This book was strange and read more like poetry. It’s narrative felt confused, running together time and space, one moment Nina is a child in the sun soaked Algerian paradise of her childhood, and the next a sombre eighteen year old confused by her sexuality in Paris. It felt like whiplash, the non-linear timeline kept me chasing my tale, desperate to put all the puzzle pieces together to create a whole picture of Nina’s life. I don’t think I quite achieved that, I felt held back - placed at a distance by the prose. Beautifully written, yet cool and impersonal.

All Men Want to Know details the violence inflicted by men upon women, the fear of walking streets alone and the warmth and comfort of being surrounded by women. It touches on the confusion of discovering a sexuality that isn’t accepted, of falling in love with the wrong person. It all felt like it had so much potential, but stories were left fragmented, unfinished and lost to memory. At no point was I really satisfied as a reader. That being said, I ate this book up in just a handful of sittings, enchanted by the writing.

Overall, this was interesting, had it been written less experimentally with a more linear narrative I might have gotten the story I wanted out of it, but I’m not sure it would have had the same dreamy quality that kept me turning the page - for that reason I’m giving All Men Want to Know 3 stars.

"People's lives appear to me as a unending series of unaswered questions."

The book moves back and forth in time, in place. It's a book about memory, culture, identity. What is it to be a young lesbian in Paris in the 1980s living in the shadow of AIDS? What does it mean to have been raised in Algiers? Was it a choice, or is it exile? What does it mean to be a daughter?

"You can't think too much about things in life, you'll miss your chance if you do, your dreams will never come true."

The book moves back and forth, from country to country, past to present, even line by line, sections divided between 'Becoming' and 'Knowing.' The author is trying to answer the question of where she is from - does her identity come from her sexuality, her nationality, or more specifically, her mother, who looms over the text, as does a particular incident in the past, only half realised and remembered. The author is aware that she writes to piece together a story - her story, the story of her family, the story of first love, and all the painful realisations that go with it.

“Our hearts will always hold on to the memory of our passions lost.”

The book felt like what I imagined a novel was like when I was a teenager. It's almost written in a stream of consciousness. It's a text saturated with the intensity of youth, of making one's mark in the world. It is saturated with nostalgia and melancholy, and as such I can't say I particularly enjoyed it. Utterly subjectively, it is a text perhaps better read in autumn or winter, rather than in the hot sun as I did. It made me grateful to no longer be so young...but I felt myself repeatedly nodding so often at the youthful intensity, and the declarations made with such fervour. I found the final pages particularly moving.

This book left me with impressions more than anything else. Not sure if it's the writing or the translation, but it's disjointed and fragmented; I loved parts of it, and parts of it confused me.

- Nirica from Team Champaca

The stop-and-start writing is the opposite of engaging. This kind of 'fragmented' narrative can work is the prose is good. Here, maybe because of the translation, the writing is just very dull. Unconnected scenes and thoughts follow one another in a rather frustrating way. And maybe I could have enjoyed it if the language had anything to offer. Here there are a few simplistic observations and a few purply metaphors.
Pity, because the cover and title are really good.

Interestingly told, abstract and dreamlike narrative from an 18 year old girl from Algeria, living in Paris and exploring her sexuality. The text moves backwards and forwards through time fluidly throughout the novel, looking back on her childhood in Algeria and her time spent at her grandparents house in France and coming back to the present, often within the space of one paragraph. Whilst this sometimes made the narrative hard to follow, it was very evocative, painting a vivid picture of the mixed emotions and confused history of the protagonist.

I didn’t really enjoy this autobiographical novel. It had what should have been an interesting plot, covering tensions in Algeria and the lesbian nightclub scene of 80s Paris, but it was all just told so flatly that I couldn’t bring myself to care about it or the protagonist, even when horrible things were happening to her and her family. As a work in translation, I obviously can never be sure if this is an issue with the text itself or with the translation. It also has a confusing structure, moving backwards and forwards in time without so much as a paragraph break.