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iridium's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
So here are two things I hate: dinner-party narratives and campus novels.
Dinner-party narratives usually take the form of stage plays rather than novels, but I hate them because they're pretty much all the same, and to me the urge to write a play about a dinner party can only come from from a writer whose ability to express emotions in any way other than snide passive-aggression has atrophied.
Meanwhile, campus novels are always soccer-mom conservative-talk-radio alarmism disguised in a tweed jacket. All this horseshit about "campus radicals" and "hookup culture" and it inevitably rings completely false, like they're written by someone who's never been to college and gets all their impressions of what college is like from the Daily Caller.
So given these opinions of mine, what compelled me to read a book that's half about a dinner party and half about a university experience? I'm not sure. I guess a part of me is always yearning for someone to come along and tell these stories properly. So is that what happened here? Kind of.
Readers should be aware that the back cover description/title/cover of the US paperback edition is a little misleading about the contents of the book. It's not that it's a lie, necessarily, but the front and back cover both work together to give the impression that Shirin, Mona, and Peri (the Sinner, the Believer, and the Confused, respectively) are three co-protagonists. Peri is the only protagonist. Shirin and Mona don't get introduced until almost halfway through the book. A substantial section of the book is about Peri's childhood in Istanbul, not Oxford. The more relevant Sinner and Believer are her father and mother.
This isn't a bad thing, though. I enjoyed reading about Peri's life. Many parts of this book really resonated with me, even the political discussion they were having at the dinner party. Shafak painted a portrait of Istanbul here, where on one hand the wealthy urbanites there are just like the wealthy urbanites in the West, while on the other hand there was that ever-present element of danger and instability that people were trying to ignore.
The campus part was tolerable because it rang a little more true to me. It focused on the intellectual side, which so many campus novels don't. I kind of hated Professor Azur, though, not gonna lie. I thought he was full of it, just as dogmatic about God in his own way. He reminded me of that one skeevy professor in Animal House who was like, "literature is bullshit, I hate teaching this, do you ever think about if our whole universe is in an atom on a giant's fingernail?" This didn't really bother me because it didn't feel like the book was demanding that I like him, just that I could see why Peri would be drawn to him.
Then, let's account for the bullshit mainstays of campus novels, which are: 1) "I'm the only authentic person here so I don't fit in with all these snooty rich kids", 2) hand-wringing about drugs and sex on campuses 3) Broad-side-of-the-barn "satire" about political correctness.
Even though Peri struggled with money, there wasn't a whole lot of #1, just because the book didn't act like she was the only person there who was working class or foreign. #2 was thankfully not in the book at all. #3 was mostly absent from the book, although there was regrettably a bit about deplatforming at the end. So for these reasons, I found the university sections of the book compelling and readable.
The dinner party segments weren't quite as interesting as the rest of the book (until the end) but they weren't boring. They were more tolerable because they didn't take up the whole book, and I guess it did seem important, the things they were talking about. Even though they as people were meant to be vapid, they had real concerns in their lives.
As for Shirin and Mona, I definitely felt that Mona was a flatter character than Shirin was. I think it was that Shirin's character felt very specific to her time and place while Mona's didn't, and you'd think it would. I thought her family being in New Jersey at the time of 9/11 would be more significant than it ended up being; at the very least, I thought it'd bring about a change in her. It didn't seem to. Another thing is that Shirin had to do with the plot, while Mona didn't. She was sort of superfluous.
The themes were occasionally expressed in a way that was sort of on-the-nose (so the following is not a direct quote, just something to help you get the general idea, but it'd be like "her father was West and her mother was East, and they clashed within her just like they clashed within Istanbul"/"professor Azur was like God, himself"/"listening to Mona and Shirin argue reminded Peri of listening to her mother and father argue" etc.). I did love the themes, though. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the ending. I might have different opinions about it once I've had time to mull it over.
I had been struggling with whether to give this a 4 or 5 stars. I settled on 4, just because it took me a while to read it, and because of the on-the-nose moments I mentioned earlier.
Dinner-party narratives usually take the form of stage plays rather than novels, but I hate them because they're pretty much all the same, and to me the urge to write a play about a dinner party can only come from from a writer whose ability to express emotions in any way other than snide passive-aggression has atrophied.
Meanwhile, campus novels are always soccer-mom conservative-talk-radio alarmism disguised in a tweed jacket. All this horseshit about "campus radicals" and "hookup culture" and it inevitably rings completely false, like they're written by someone who's never been to college and gets all their impressions of what college is like from the Daily Caller.
So given these opinions of mine, what compelled me to read a book that's half about a dinner party and half about a university experience? I'm not sure. I guess a part of me is always yearning for someone to come along and tell these stories properly. So is that what happened here? Kind of.
Readers should be aware that the back cover description/title/cover of the US paperback edition is a little misleading about the contents of the book. It's not that it's a lie, necessarily, but the front and back cover both work together to give the impression that Shirin, Mona, and Peri (the Sinner, the Believer, and the Confused, respectively) are three co-protagonists. Peri is the only protagonist. Shirin and Mona don't get introduced until almost halfway through the book. A substantial section of the book is about Peri's childhood in Istanbul, not Oxford. The more relevant Sinner and Believer are her father and mother.
This isn't a bad thing, though. I enjoyed reading about Peri's life. Many parts of this book really resonated with me, even the political discussion they were having at the dinner party. Shafak painted a portrait of Istanbul here, where on one hand the wealthy urbanites there are just like the wealthy urbanites in the West, while on the other hand there was that ever-present element of danger and instability that people were trying to ignore.
The campus part was tolerable because it rang a little more true to me. It focused on the intellectual side, which so many campus novels don't. I kind of hated Professor Azur, though, not gonna lie. I thought he was full of it, just as dogmatic about God in his own way. He reminded me of that one skeevy professor in Animal House who was like, "literature is bullshit, I hate teaching this, do you ever think about if our whole universe is in an atom on a giant's fingernail?" This didn't really bother me because it didn't feel like the book was demanding that I like him, just that I could see why Peri would be drawn to him.
Then, let's account for the bullshit mainstays of campus novels, which are: 1) "I'm the only authentic person here so I don't fit in with all these snooty rich kids", 2) hand-wringing about drugs and sex on campuses 3) Broad-side-of-the-barn "satire" about political correctness.
Even though Peri struggled with money, there wasn't a whole lot of #1, just because the book didn't act like she was the only person there who was working class or foreign. #2 was thankfully not in the book at all. #3 was mostly absent from the book, although there was regrettably a bit about deplatforming at the end. So for these reasons, I found the university sections of the book compelling and readable.
The dinner party segments weren't quite as interesting as the rest of the book (until the end) but they weren't boring. They were more tolerable because they didn't take up the whole book, and I guess it did seem important, the things they were talking about. Even though they as people were meant to be vapid, they had real concerns in their lives.
As for Shirin and Mona, I definitely felt that Mona was a flatter character than Shirin was. I think it was that Shirin's character felt very specific to her time and place while Mona's didn't, and you'd think it would. I thought her family being in New Jersey at the time of 9/11 would be more significant than it ended up being; at the very least, I thought it'd bring about a change in her. It didn't seem to. Another thing is that Shirin had to do with the plot, while Mona didn't. She was sort of superfluous.
The themes were occasionally expressed in a way that was sort of on-the-nose (so the following is not a direct quote, just something to help you get the general idea, but it'd be like "her father was West and her mother was East, and they clashed within her just like they clashed within Istanbul"/"professor Azur was like God, himself"/"listening to Mona and Shirin argue reminded Peri of listening to her mother and father argue" etc.). I did love the themes, though. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the ending. I might have different opinions about it once I've had time to mull it over.
I had been struggling with whether to give this a 4 or 5 stars. I settled on 4, just because it took me a while to read it, and because of the on-the-nose moments I mentioned earlier.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Islamophobia, and Colonisation
mariebrunelm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I first read this book last year, having been drawn to the diverse take on dark academia, and the first time round the book had come very close to being a favourite of the year. The good news is, it's just as engaging the second time round!
You have elements of mystery, a pinch of magical realism, nuanced characters, diverse representation, gorgeous prose and thought-provoking conversations.
This book very much feels like basking in the light of a very charismatic and very knowledgeable speaker, you know the kind? These fascinating people you could spend hours listening to. That's close to what I felt reading this book, in a fiction format. I just wish the ending was a little less rushed, but that's probably because I would have happily read a couple more hundred pages like that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Sexual assault, Islamophobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, and Self harm
northernzephyr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
Moderate: Child death, Torture, and Suicide attempt
myfriendthatcanread's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Misogyny, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Islamophobia, and Medical trauma