This book is about friends in exile from their native country Libya.  Khaled is a young man from Libya that moves to the UK in the 80s.  He meets up with another kid named Mustafa and they form a friendship and then participate in a protest and after that cannot go back to their country.  They also form a friendship with a man named Hasam who has also been critical of the government and is in exile too.  I can see why this novel was nominated as one of the best books of the year.  It was really good and captivating, but not boring, which I find some literary books can be.  I learned more about Gadaffi and that time period than what I knew.  The reading for this book was quick and that might be do to the shorter chapters.