I am so thankful to Tin House Books, Ledia Xhoga, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

This was a lovely book and I’m grateful to have been able to read it as an early reviewer. The characterization was thoughtful and layered. The setting was also remarkable having spanned continents. This story achieves a gloomy ambiance that makes you hold your breath the entire time.

Pervasively unsettling and sometimes intriguing, Misinterpretation would appeal to readers of literary fiction. The unnamed narrator, an Albanian translator living in New York, remains largely a mystery. We are privy only to hints of what her childhood in Albania must have been like and the history of her marriage to the unpredictably volatile Billy is a question mark for much of the novel. The protagonist is sometimes lost in the events taking place around her, almost blending into the background as she makes a web of well-meaning, morally complex decisions that often end poorly. It was well-written and interesting, though not for me.

This was a really interesting read and something I'm not sure I would have picked up at a bookstore. The FMCs relationships with the other characters were very interesting and I haven't read anything that focused on Albanian characters before so it was interesting to learn about them.

I can’t even lie—I forgot to write a review for this book because that’s how quickly I forgot about it. I know there is a group of people who would really enjoy this book, but I’m just not part of it. I found it to be very, very boring. You’re made to feel like the main character’s problems or resolutions are supposed to be heavy or impactful, but at no point did I ever really connect with her or her experiences.

That being said, the book's larger message is intricate and thoughtful. Using the main character as an interpreter and translator, the story examines how things get lost in translation—whether it's actions, words, or thoughts. The title is perfect, and the cover is stunning. I also think the cultural elements will be a major selling point, along with its prose. For that reason, I appreciated the potential the book had, and I’m interested in what the author might do next.

While this book did make me reflect on action versus intention versus actual outcomes, it quickly faded from my memory once I finished it.

An intriguing debut that sees the unnamed narrator- who works as an interpreter-swirl into herself as her marriage spins out due to her involvement with her clients. She wants to help them, so much so that she loses sight of herself. Her husband Billy is baffled by all of it and leaves for a period; she heads home to Albania. Her return sees her prior activities echo back to her. This can be frustrating at times as it isn't as straight forward as the reader might like but the writing is lyrical without being purple and it is thought provoking. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

This is a very interesting and brutally honest novel, but unfortunately, I don't think it's the best book I've read this year. Parts of this novel dragged; some scenes were very fascinating. I liked the protagonist and her friendship with a torture survivor named Alfred. I liked how moody and dark this novel got, but I still felt like something was missing. The ending left me unsatisfied. The writing was a little disjointed at times, but overall, I would read from this author again.

The protagonist of Ledia Xhoga’s Misinterpretation is determined to help others yet rarely stops to think about what would really help them. Although she is always willing to step up, her efforts to make life a little better for the misfortunate, things always seem to go wrong. We rarely see this side of good deeds: when trying to help just makes things worse.

The unnamed protagonist is a polyglot, equally talented at interpreting for immigrants at their court appearances and translating technical manuals into Italian, Albanian, and other languages. Her work keeps her incredibly busy, yet she is more than willing to step up to do favors–much to her academic American husband’s frustration. He never knows when someone will knock at their door with a request to crash in their study or an entire family looking for a favor. At first, it’s hard to understand Billy’s anger. How can he be mad when his wife is helping people? It takes a few good deeds to understand the toll it to give all your time to others.

The first person we see receive help from our protagonist is Alfred, a torture survivor from Kosovo. The interpreter has only been engaged to translate for Alfred at a dentist appointment but the untrusting Alfred quickly grows attached to our protagonist. Within hours, it seems, he asks for her to not only interpret for him at his therapist appointments but also take classes to re-certify to do this kind of highly stressful and emotional work. Their relationship is fraught with the kind of emotional connection that all the ethical codes warn against. The next person is a Kurdish woman who is being followed on orders from her abusive husband and our protagonist makes even more thoughtless efforts to help his woman find a safe harbor.

As I read, I constantly reflected on the title of this book. A misinterpretation is a mistake we make when we think we know what’s going on. We use the incomplete information we have to make a decision or take an action, only to learn later that if we had slowed down to learn a little more about the situation, serious errors could have been avoided entirely. One might think that personal experience might have taught our protagonist not to keep jumping into people’s lives like a do-gooder paratrooper but, again, how does one stop trying to help people who need it? The protagonist’s misinterpretations offer a lot of food for thought about balancing one’s own needs against the needs of others, about taking care of our loved ones as much as we take care of others, and about pausing to think about what would be truly helpful instead of following one’s misguided instincts.

Misinterpretation is a book that invites reflection; I would definitely recommend it to anyone who takes care of others or has such a caretaker in their life because of the way it leads us to think about altruism, burnout, frustration, and self-worth.

This felt so original. It's part thriller, party literary story and the writing was not only immersive, but the kind that takes your breath away at parts. I was interested based on the blurb and striking cover and I am so happy this turned out to be just as great on the inside!

I went into this book not knowing what to expected. The description captivated me and I wanted to see what the author's story was going to be. I was stunned by this book. The care that these topics are dealt with by Xhoga as well as pushing the characters to expose more of their mentality, psychology, and human struggle to show characters that have been through a lot and are struggling. This book was an emotional rollercoaster but you see such a raw experience of these characters who have been through so much. Xhoga's writing is captivating and they have true talent for writing.