Play Book Tag discussion

Very slow burning, character driven story line.

The main character is Peri who always finds herself "in between". She's from Istanbul Turkey, a city that sits partly in Europe, partly in Asia - and a country that sits uncomfortably between secularism and religion.

Her family mirrors this split - one very religious parent, the other more secular and ambivalent. Same split with her two brothers, and finally two best friends when she reaches Oxford University.

Lots of internal dialogue and philosophical discussions about the nature of God. I loved this aspect along with the characters themselves.

The only thing that felt a little off by the end was that each character ended up being almost one-dimensional, based on a single attribute: the religious one, the feminist, the bitter ex-student, the corrupt businessman, and so on. Very little nuance allowed per character, and not until the very end do we see some growth for Peri and her former professor.

I am glad to see you enjoyed it, Sue. I am reading this now.

I also thought this was a five star read! It has remained one of my favorites of all time. I don't remember feeling the end had a lack of dimensionality. I thought the author did a fine job of exploring how complex these issues actually were.

@Joy - Can't wait to hear what you think of it.

@Amy - I didn't mean the book didn't have dimensionality. More that some of the characters felt reduced to a single element of their life. Mona was the "believer", Shirin the more modern secularist, Peri's parents split pretty cleanly between belief and non-belief. But I also recognize that the neat categorizations fit the needs of the book perfectly.

I was wondering what this book was like. The cover/title reminds me of the Joanne Woodward film Three Faces of Eve, from the 1960's, which I've seen several times.

I read 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak and I really enjoyed it's originality. I was planning to read The Forty Rules of Love sometime soon.

So glad you also gave this five stars. And I too want to read the 40 rules of love. Maybe when the tag fits, we will get to do that together Nancy.

I loved this book. I agree it is one of the best ever....