CHARGE (What is the author trying to say?): How is love affected by loss, reconciliation, and a 1953 coup in Iran that will change their country forever?
FACTS: The book looks back on Bahman and Roya, two seventeen-year-old students who fall in love in a stationery shop in Tehran in the midst of a city in political turmoil. From the way the book is structured, we know from the beginning that their love is ill-fated and as the book unfolds, we find out why. Bahman disappears in the months leading up to their summer wedding. With this disappearance, the book shifts back into the more distant past, to the life of the owner of the stationery shop who will take on more significance than just their matchmaker. His life will prove intertwined with them in ways that can only be determined by examining the past. Unexpected relationships, twists of fate, breathtaking losses, and poignant reunions punctuate the book. The beautiful descriptions transport you to another place and another time. Emotions run the gamut in a book I couldn’t put down.
VERDICT (Was the author successful?): Guilty, as charged. This book is a jewel – one you won’t soon forget!
#NetGalley #StationeryShop
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