Leila Slimani
Penguin
9 June 2026 (2025)
368
eBook - EPUB
Contemporary Fiction
ARC via Edelweiss
Mia Belhaj yearns to be free. A child of Morocco in the politically and socially turbulent 1980s, she flees her family and her homeland to seek her own place in the world. Years later, she finds it as a famous author, only for a bout with a virus to jeopardize her memory and the novel she wants to write about her past. When she’s advised to retrace her history to reclaim her present, Mia journeys around the world in search of herself, from Casablanca to Paris to New York, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11, and finally back to her grandparents’ farm in Morocco, where her story first began. Acclaimed author Leila Slimani brings her own past to life in this provocative, beautifully written family fresco carried by vigorous poetry and a breath of great power.
I'll Take the Fire was a book I came to without any real expectations. I had requested it thinking I still needed to cross Morocco off my Around the World Reading Challenge, only to realise I had already done so with another book last year. Still, having requested it, I wanted to go ahead and read it, and I ended up enjoying it. Although the blurb concentrates on Mia, this is really a family saga across several generations, with each of the characters going on their own journey of discovery. At the same time, the book examines themes such as gender and sexuality, oppression, racism and family relationships. The prose was easy reading yet still evocative and packed with emotion without becoming too much. I recommend it to readers who like family dramas set in more recent times and voyages of self-discovery. I am giving it 4 stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
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