All Inclusive by Farzana Doctor is a fascinating novel about the real world with elements of magical realism: a spirit interacts with humans. The novel starts with two storylines along with two main characters, Azeez and Ameera. The former is a visa student from India who dies in an Air India flight crash in 1985 after he’s obtained a Ph.D. degree in Canada and returns to his home country. The latter is a young Canadian woman of mixed-race heritage who works as a tourist representative in Mexico. The language is vivid. And with the first-person narration, the characters, even the spirit, come to life. I enjoy Azeez’s story very much, especially his wisdom and philosophical thoughts after his death. I think in the early part of Ameera’s story, the description of Ameera’s sexual activities with her clients is redundant, which slows down the pacing and could lose some readers. The relationship between Ameera and her mother is very well developed. The novel deals excellently with shades of the dark side of real life, such as death, a child without a father, and jealousness that hits the climber on the corporate ladder. The author has engrossing stories to tell. ( )

I've read a couple other Farzana Doctor novels before this one and I always seem to go into them (and I went into this one) thinking that I know what's going to happen during it. And every single time I've been totally wrong (in only the best way), and instead had my mind blown by the story. I had my mind blown by this novel as well.

This novel is primarily about two characters. The first is a young woman named Ameera. She works at the all inclusive resort in Mexico and she's twenty eight going on twenty nine. She's not quite sure where she's going in life and definitely at a crossroads. The second character is a guy named Azeez. His story is the one with the most twists so I won't spoil it. But I thought that while his story was definitely different it was also really cool and made sense in the larger novel.

I actually really liked both the main characters, but I also liked the secondary characters very much. Like Manuela, Oscar, and Enrique to name a few. My favorite, though, was Nafees. We didn't get to see a lot of Nafees, but a very, very cool character.

I really liked the novel. I'm not usually someone who reads novels that can be firmly categorized as literature, but if/when Farzana Doctor writes another one I'll definitely want to read it too (and probably get tricked again into thinking that I know what's going to happen.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Dundurn. ( )