How long does it take to read An Unnecessary Woman: A Novel?
Rabih Alameddine, Suzanne Toren
An Unnecessary Woman: A Novel by Rabih Alameddine, Suzanne Toren takes about 5 hours 44 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 44 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2014. 313 pages, about 86,075 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 34 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 44 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 35 minutes |
The page count is the median across 9 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, childless, and divorced, Aaliya is her family's 'unnecessary appendage.' Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read-- by anyone. After overhearing her neighbors, 'the three witches,' discussing her too-white hair, Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too blue. In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman's late-life crisis, readers follow Aaliya's digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Colorful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya's own volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left" --
Subjects: Recluses, Fiction, Women, Family life, Neighbors, Secrets
