My thoughts
What a book. This is a new to me author and this book is so hard to describe. It's definitely going to be at the top of my favorite books for this year. This is such a good one. One you won't want to put down and you definitely can not just skim through it and understand what is going on.(in case you do that)
This book is told from three timelines and about three people. In 1840 when a baby boy is born on the banks of the River Thames. Named King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums by his people. He is destine to do some very important things. Author has a memory like no other. He never forgets anything thus is considered a genius. He is obsessed with the sacred tablets that hold poems dating back centuries to Mesopotamia. He starts out with a job in a publishing house and eventually is dedicated to deciphering the sacred tablets in the museum. He travels to Mesopotamia to find the missing tablets. The rest of a poem. His story is sad and exciting. He is such a good young man. I loved this character.
Then in 2014 we meet 9 year old Narin. A Yazidi girl who lives with her grandmother. The Yazidi people are called devil worshippers and treated bad. As you learn more about this young girl your heart will be broken. The things that happened to these people. I had no idea. From ISIS taking them. Killing the men and boys and selling the girls to be used as sex slaves. The older women buried alive just to save on a bullet. You learn what happened in to Narin.
Then you jump into 2018 and meet Zaleekhah, a young water scientist. She was raised by her uncle after the tragic deaths of her parents. Zaleekhah lives on a house boat. She is a very smart woman who has taken her life in her own hands and decided to live for herself. Though she does plan to end her life in one month. A lot will happen before that. She is separated from her husband of three years and her uncle really wants her to go back and try to make things work. Do whatever she has to to get things back the way they should be. But Zaleekhah has other plans.
This all starts with a drop of water. A snowflake. A tear. How water plays a role in this story is told in a beautiful and heartbreaking way. What is happening in the world is the name of progress is sad. Buried cities. Buried people. Whole areas just wiped out. Yet in the midst of all of this you meet these three people and they give you a lot to think about. Or they did me. This book is just so good. Easy to read and easy to keep up with all that is going on. It's long but also a fairly quick read. One I highly recommend.
Thank you #NetGalley, #Knopf, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.
FIVE huge stars.
About
From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. "Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf... you won't regret it." (Arundhati Roy)
In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.
In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.
In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.
In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.
In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.
In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.
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