Review by Club Member - Guruprasad G B

This book is one of the most wholesome and satisfying books one can read. It is around 300 pages, roughly, but I felt I had read an epic after finishing it. The story of Roya and her unfulfilled love is heart-wrenching. And in Kamali's expression, it invokes strong reactions and emotions that last throughout the book. The author has left no stone unturned or any stories incomplete. All the characters have fulfilled their journeys that leaves the reader satisfied and complete. Though this is a love story, the book delves deep into Iran's food, culture, history, and literature. The love that blossomed in the stationary shop is fragrant with Rumi's poetry that keeps it vivid and burning through every page. The main characters' lives are followed through an intricate web of food, cooking, and beverage that allow you to relish the tastes and fragrances of all the ingredients that went into them. The inexplicable joy of exchanging hand-written letters and getting to read them after long gaps of anticipation is something we may never have in the age of Whatsapp messaging and emails. Zoya's relationships with herself, her love, and all the characters in the book realize a liveliness in her thoughts and emotions described poignantly by Maran Kamali. She paints each frame of Roya's entire life through intense words and real-life descriptions. It covers the lives of the main characters over 70 years, and hence, should not be read in one go. This book is a slow-burning experience and should be read over a period to relish and absorb all the intensity. Though the emotions of love and loss are dramatized excessively in a few sections, it only adds to the melancholic feel of the lovers. The book has a meaningful end which gives closure to everyone involved with it.