I found this book to be both enormously interesting and
vastly disjointed. It was difficult to
follow the characters and time lines. Characters came and went with alarming
frequency. Time jumped back and forth from the early days of the Iranian
Revolution to the present with stops in the middle.
My attention was immediately captured in the first few
paragraphs, but then the next chapter moved to another time and place with new
characters and I was left lost and wondering.
Perhaps this was the author’s intention as those same disjointed
feelings were evident in each of the (many) characters.
Delijani captures the sense of loss and “disconnectedness”
the characters felt as their lives were disrupted, ended and changed from
moment to moment with no clear resolution in sight. The descriptions are
lovely. The characters are generally
well drawn. Situations are rendered in often harrowing clarity. However, I had a hard time with the younger
generation. I couldn’t remember who the parents were or what had happened to
them or worse, if I had even “met” them before.
I wish I could say I liked this book and give it 5 stars. I
wanted to..…but….. The book needs a list
of characters with notes to their relationships. A glossary would help, for
example, a “manteau” was defined as a “medieval garment like a coat” in my
dictionary, I’m still not clear on what kind of garment was meant.
I read this on an e-reader – perhaps not the best choice for
this book. But thank you Net Galley who provided the book in exchange for this
review.
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