The following version of this book was used to create the guide: El Akkad, Omar. What Strange Paradise. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.

What Strange Paradise is divided into 30 chapters with alternating titles of "Before" and "After." The "Before" chapters tell the story of 8-year-old Syrian refugee Amir Utu before he boards the fated fishing vessel Calypso and is nearly drowned. This storyline is in the past tense. The "After" chapters follow Amir as he makes his way to safety after surviving the shipwreck. This storyline is in the present tense. Because El Akkad employs an atypical narrative structure that weaves together two distinct storylines, this plot summary presents each story individually in a linear fashion.

The novel begins with the “After” storyline as an unnamed boy (Amir) lies on an island shore surrounded by dead bodies and remnants from a shipwreck. Young police officers attempt to block the scene of carnage from the view of tourists and journalists by shoddily stringing tarps between lampposts, and workers dressed in hazmat suits patrol the beach kicking at the dead for signs of life and picking up anything of value.

The officers give chase when they spot Amir rising, but 15-year-old Vanna Hermes intervenes to save him while the police are still shrouded in the trees. She hides him in an unused farmhouse on the family’s property and points the police officers in the wrong direction. Vanna navigates her tense home situation to keep Amir hidden and fed in the farmhouse until later that day when she boldly leads him to the old school gymnasium used to house migrants until deportation.

The coordinator of the facility, Madame Nimra El Ward, has a kind heart and fearing for his safety in the care of the system, advises Vanna to lead him to the defunct lighthouse on the northernmost tip of the island. Madame Ward promises that if Vanna can keep Amir hidden and safe for two days, a ferryman will meet them there and give Amir safe passage to a camp on the mainland. She believes he may have a chance of being reunited with his family if he can make it there.

Meanwhile an old friend of Vanna’s mother, Colonel Dimitri Kethros, is scouring the island for signs of the boy and is almost immediately suspicious of Vanna. He interrogates Madame Ward after the children leave the gymnasium and makes clear that he knows she is lying about the whereabouts of the children.

Vanna leads Amir toward the lighthouse, stopping at the popular tourist destination called Hotel Xenios where she steals a fresh change of clothes for the boy and gives him a shower. With help from a kind housekeeper, the children leave with food and continue their journey to the lighthouse. Colonel Kethros continues to close in on them, but eventually they make the lighthouse.

Just before they are to meet the ferryman, Kethros and his young soldiers spot them and corner them in a fishing hut. Vanna is sent back to her family while an irate Kethros delivers a long and impassioned diatribe to Amir. Before he is able to intern the boy, Vanna reappears and delivers a knockout blow to the side of Kethros’ face with a shovel. The children escape to safety with the ferryman.

This storyline, told in the “After” chapters, is woven with the “Before” narrative that begins in the second chapter. Here, the reader meets the Utu family as they fled their war-torn home of Homs, Syria and made their way to Damascus on a bus. The family consisted of mother Iman, younger brother Harun, protagonist Amir and his stepfather Younis (Quiet Uncle). They stayed for a week in Damascus with a distant cousin of Amir’s deceased father before making their way to a small seaside town in Egypt called Taba.

Late one night, Quiet Uncle snuck out of the house under the cover of darkness and made his way to a docked ship. Curious, Amir followed him and once noticed by the ship’s crew was coerced into boarding. Once at sea, the smugglers led the refugees onto a much smaller and dilapidated fishing vessel called the Calypso. When they realized Quiet Uncle’s relation to Amir, the smugglers forced him to pay a second passage, threatening to sell Amir into slavery otherwise. Without enough money to pay for another seat above deck, Quiet Uncle was confined below with the poorer African refugees. Malfunctioning life-vests that absorb water were handed out to everyone who paid extra, Quiet Uncle gave his to Amir along with a locket containing pictures of Iman and Harun.

Alone above deck on the crowded ship, Amir was befriended by a pregnant woman named Umm Ibrahim. Throughout the rough journey, she protected him and treated him as family, feeding him and keeping other passengers from haranguing him. The passengers were often at odds, frequently fueled by lectures from an enforcer named Mohamed whom the smugglers placed on the boat to keep the peace.

The Calypso had no motor and was steered by two Eritrean refugees who took turns keeping the compass needle pointed due North, as instructed by the smugglers. After a close call with a freighter ship that nearly ran them over, the Calypso collided with a bad storm, and fearful for their lives, the refugees above deck crowded one side of the ship sending all of the passengers into the sea.

A Syrian passenger named Walid, whose refractory behavior kept everyone on edge the whole journey, stole the foam life vest from Amir and jumped into the sea. Amir had a near-death experience as he was swirled about in the turbulent waters and is ultimately deposited on the shore with the rest of the passengers.

The final chapter departs from the novel’s “Before” and “After” structure and is titled “Now.” This chapter is also presented in the present tense. In a sudden plot twist, the audience learns that the “After” story never happened. Amir never survived the shipwreck. Amir was drowned with the rest of the passengers and the story of his adventures with the empathetic Vanna was a fairy tale all along.