Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Stationery Shop

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

163 reviews

bridgjm's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad 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

5.0

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nataliecoyne's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

Words cannot express how much I loved this book. It is such an easy 5 stars and I now really admire Marjan Kamali's writing. I loved her other book that I read, <i>The Lion Women of Tehran</i>, but it's entirely possible that I loved this one even more. The story is so beautiful, albeit tragic at times. And it felt very <i>real.</i> It didn't feel like I was watching some cheesy romance movie.

At first, I didn't really understand the decision to include a romance between Ali and [name I'm not including to avoid spoilers], when I read the chapter with introducing that romance at the beginning of part 2 I was like "okay, this is random??" But, by the end, it made a lot of sense.

I absolutely would recommend this to others. Easy 5 stars.

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akbbailey's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

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banyantree's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

this book accompanied me to my trip to Montreal and i only picked it up as i am traveling back - 9 hours of commute and it was a mistake as i am ugly crying on the bus

it is no one's fault, i vaguely knew the premise, but they need to retire this

trope of lost time due to misunderstanding and miscommunication in romances like it's not ok, it opens up a void in my chest and leaves me so depressed...bahman's final letter to roya killed me and when i was finally recovering i read the epilogue and realized that mr. fakhri died trying to unite these two and waterworks started again. another trope that needs to be retired is the mom of a son being the reason a relationship breaks off...idk i expected something political as the reason and not the mom's involvement

also something so precious and political about the story centering around a stationary shop/bookshop

aaaaah roya and bahman...thank you for being on this bus ride with me and taking me along your journey, i need to now go and recover from all this

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obx_mt's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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leighellenj's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

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rapitash's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.75

Although I tried to go into this book as blindly as possible, I fear that the blurb/summary of the novel gave me unrealistic expectations. Instead of a tragic story of two lovers who are torn apart by political machinations outside of their control, the novel delivered a much more generic love story that uses the 1953 Iranian coup as a backdrop more than as an actor. (And I would’ve loved to see more of the politics at the forefront, I can’t lie.)

It doesn’t help that I didn’t particularly care about Roya and Bahman’s relationship. There were red flags from the beginning, clearly more of an issue than the political context. It felt childish and puppy-esque, and for two people who had only known each other for six months and changed wildly after their engagement was over, it was hard to believe that they were still so devoted to each other.

I wasn’t ever convinced that if they had married, they would’ve ended up happy, either, and so it disappointed me when the narrative had made it seem that there would've been more to their lives if they had remained together. It made me feel so bad for Walter.

The back half of the novel was more engaging to me than the beginning, but it disappointed me because it skipped over so much time, and such pivotal moments in Roya’s life were glossed over.

Like what happened with Roya’s parents? Apparently they never met her son and had stayed in Iran, but we don’t know when they died or what happened to them post the Iranian Revolution. On Bahman’s end, we never find out how he ended up in America, or how his life was impacted by the Iranian Revolution, which he had clearly lived through.

What did devastate me, however, was

Badri and Ali. Badri was 14 and knew Ali was going to take advantage of her. And while he was in love with her, that’s exactly what he did. The consequences of that relationship and Ali’s cowardice resulted in so much pain for Badri that it stuck with me after the novel, more so than what had happened with Roya and Bahman.

Overall, this was a very easy read, and I enjoyed the prose, but my lack of interest in Roya and Bahman made it difficult to enjoy. Every time I learnt something interesting about them it was glossed over, which made it hard for me to properly connect to them. I really wish that there had been more of an intertwined narrative with some of the other characters—Zari comes to mind, more Mrs Aslan, and potentially Walter, who I liked a lot, or even more Claire—if only because their stories had felt more interesting to me.

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