In the Washington Post, Carolyn See described it as "a bracing and beautiful little novel."[4] Pankaj Mishra, writing in the New York Review of Books, said that "Lalami writes about her home country without the expatriate's self-indulgent and often condescending nostalgia."[5]
Kirkus Reviews said the book was "ambitious", ...[f]lawed but impressive: This could well be the preamble to an important body of work."[6]
Publishers Weekly described it as "Less a novel than a set of finely detailed portraits, this book gives outsiders a glimpse of some of Moroccan society's strata and the desperation that underlies many ordinary lives."[2]
In a 2014 essay, critic Lisa Marchi said the book is "wisely constructed: the writer confidently travels between temporal settings and geographical zones to gradually unveil the genealogy of each character’s migratory project".[3]
