On a stunning and epic tale of lives connected by a single drop of water that spans different centuries and countries. Grateful for the opportunity to read this early. I think this book is even better and more complex than Shafak’s previous books. I read a couple of pages last night and pretty much finished the entire book today.⁣
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This book follows three characters in different time periods. You have Arthur who’s born into poverty near River Thames with a gift of extraordinary memory in Victorian London; Narin, a 9-year old Yazidi girl living near River Tigris who’s taken away by ISIS during the 2014 Iraq war; and Zaleekhah, a water scientist in London who’s somewhat lost following a separation from her husband, set in 2018.⁣
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I was very intrigued by the opening chapter that tells the story of King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia in ancient Nineveh that sets the scene of how the stories in the book revolve, especially in how the characters are bound by Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the greatest poems of all time. I also think that it’s particularly clever to link the three seemingly unconnected stories via a single drop of water that holds the memories of life. Shafak not interweaves her characters’ stories skilfully, but she also blends her captivating storytelling with historical details, including the history of the Yazidi people that I didn’t know much about as well as the complexity of marginalised lives and displaced people. ⁣
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“…How does a people survive the painful realisation that not only is their history full of oppression, persecution and massacres, but their future may also offer more of the same?”⁣
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There’s so much to reflect on beauty and pain, and I shall be thinking about it for a while.

This was a really profound, well-executed, intelligent and a heart-searing book that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish and devoured it in one single sitting.

Another sublime novel from Elif Shafak that is truly monumental in its scope. Reminiscent of Victory City in terms of its core reference to epic poetry, this is a work that covers vast themes and expertly weaves together spellbinding plot strands. I love Shafak's writing style and the sense of setting cultivated was strong and visceral. Every page is rich with detail in this absorbing contemplation on the human condition.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.