Jenniferreads

by Elif Shafak

Historical Fiction | 5⭐️ | 8/20/24 | Knopf

I read somewhere that “beautifully written” is code for slow. Yes, I’m not going to lie, this is a slow book. It took me awhile to get through it. I even had to put it aside for a while. But it was absolutely beautiful. This is a story of an Assyrian King, an Epic Poem, a poor boy who can read cuneiform, a young Yazidi girl, and a hydrologist all connected over thousands of years by a single drop of water. 

This is a masterfully crafted, intensely researched book that explores the human condition and a homeland, passion and persecution, an ancient language, the memory of water, and the birth of civilization. This took me down a hundred Google rabbit holes and made me exclaim “huh” out loud more than once. It taught me things and left me pondering about others. While this book made me work for it, I will most likely be thinking about this for awhile. If you like deeper, slower books that really dive deep into history, teach you something you might not have known before, and makes you think a little harder, I highly recommend this one.