Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Thirty Names of Night

The Thirty Names of Night 4.5/5 🪶s

Oh my goodness. I loved this book. It is beautiful: a reflective mingling of past and present explored through alternating POVs of a two Syrian artists: one, a sapphic immigrant who fled Syrian during the French/Syrian war and the other, a closeted trans man struggling under the grief of his mother's death. It is a story about loss, which means it is a story about love: lost loves, familial love, love of our communities, love of ourselves. On the five-year anniversary of his mother's death, the man finds the journal of the Syrian immigrant and discovers his life and her life are irreparably intertwined through their shared obsession of a rare bird: a bird his mother died before she could prove it was real. What follows is a parallel narrative between past and present, unfolding the lives of both artists as they attempt to unravel their own identities admist the complex and varied social pressures of their varied eras.

The only reason this book isn't a full five stars for me is that, despite how beautiful it is to read, it is SLOW. It's a very reflective piece, and I loved the real-world history that went into the creation of this book, but even I at times found myself skipping ahead to get to the next piece of the mystery. I still do highly recommend it.

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hmstaab's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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noah_silver's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

I liked the two interwoven timelines, the development and growth of the two main characters & their different voices, the different kinds of queerness coming up during the story - and the focus on & omnipresence of birds in the lives of the characters.
However, at some points I found it a bit slow and am still confused about some turns of the story. It might be due to listening to it as an audio book and maybe not catching everything. I was also not completely convinced of the audio book narrator's styles.

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laurenleigh's review

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Absolutely brilliant. I was rather blown away by this book. It tells a dual narrative, one in present day New York and one in the 20’s or 30’s, of a Syrian immigrant to NY. Both stories were gorgeously deep queer narratives, full of loss, discovery, and finding your true identity in a world that most often seeks to erase you. The intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and immigration status are a heady mix that feels a bit overwhelming at time, but it gave me a valuable bit of insight into lives so different from my own. I highly recommend print or ebook format here. I think an important unfolding of the plot is lost in audio, though I can’t say more without spoilers! 😊

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danaaliyalevinson's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I liked this book a lot! I’m a sucker for a generational story, which are also really hard to pull off well. I think this book has a few contrivances between the two depicted generations but largely pulls off a satisfying conclusion. The prose is beautiful. And as a trans person reading it, the relationship especially between Nadir and Sami was so beautifully rendered.

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