Reviews

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri

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kalliegrace's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

A story that will move you slowly, but stay with you long after it's done. Similar in location and time period to Persephone, and thematically comparable to Etaf Rum's work, this is sad but hopeful. Women in Iran do not have easy lives, but daydreaming creates a world this one can survive in.

kitkat2500's review against another edition

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4.0

I would give this book 4.5 stars, if I could! The beginning was a little slow to find its rhythm, but once it got going, it was hard to put this book down. It is a story of a young girl who is separated from her twin sister and her mother, and raised by her father. The story is very touching, but mostly, the reality of growing up in Iran (for both boys and girls) is heart-breaking. There are numerous references to Persian expressions (earth on her head; one hundred black years) which are really fun for Persian-speakers, but not so much for others. I highly recommend this book.

mamalemma's review against another edition

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5.0

An extraordinarily beautiful and brutal tale of a young family touched by tragedy in post-revolutionary Iran. If you can imagine how hard it would be to be an independent Iranian woman, and worse yet, an independent Iranian Christian woman, and even worse yet, an independent Iranian Christian motherless woman ... and worse still, an independent Iranian Christian motherless woman who has lost her twin, then you have a sense of scale at the challenges facing our main character. She survives in the only way she knows how ... dreaming of what can never be and creating stories to explain the unexplainable. While our ferocious heroine idolizes the US, she paints a picture of a beautiful ancient Iranian culture, one torn asunder by the revolution in the 1980s. Women are subjugated, covered, blamed for everything. The pain of loss abounds, and I felt it acutely. It also feels urgent and instructional; a siren for the current troubles of the United States. My heart aches for Saba, her father, her lifelong friends Reza and Ponneh and and for Iran herself.