Book Review: The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Historical Fiction
Length: 312 pages
Author: Marjan Kamali
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: June 18th, 2019
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love” and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate.

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

HURT ME.

This book hurt me deeply y’all. DEEPLY. Honestly the ending wasn’t everything *I* was needing and left me a bit bereft and filled with all the feelings.

BUT, this was still an amazingly good read. I was attached to the audiobook because I had to keep seeing how this story unfolded. I loved the historical fiction aspects and reading about a part of history I don’t know a lot about. I love learning through books and this brought an intense amount of insight to the pain of the time period.

And I do love a book that makes me feel every emotion. I was on that journey with Roya and was pulled every which way with her. There’s many many things to unpack in this story and the complications that life ultimately brings.

Overall audience notes:

Historical fiction
Language: none-low
Romance: closed door
Violence: high
Trigger/Content Warnings: suicide attempt, abortion, war, violence, child loss