A writer is only as good as the material she reads. The more you read, the more you'll write and grow. There are so many good books out there. Each month I'll do an in-depth review of a book that I have read. If you have a book that you think I should read, submit the name below in the comments!
January for new beginnings. This month's book is "The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak.
My mother brought this book to my attention several years ago. I was in high school when I initially read it and now I own a copy that I peruse frequently. It was published in 2010.
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This is my copy of the book. I got it off of Amazon and it came from a library.
It has that shiny plastic covering on the outside and even a barcode. |
The book starts with a quote from Shams of Tabriz, who the reader will learn is a wandering dervish and a main character of the book.
Then the story begins with a prologue in a way that is part philosophy, part metaphorical imagery and very captivating. It's actually in second person yet seems to transition to third person as it describes Ella Rubinstein. However, back to that second person, it brings you into the story by giving
you an action: throwing a stone into flowing water. The sentences are lyrical and flowing with the right paragraph breaks to make you think.
Now, Ella Rubinstein is
the main character. She is the one that sets the story in motion. Ella Rubinstein is a housewife. She lives with her husband and has three kids, one is in college, the other two are twins. They live in Massachusetts and the prologue makes it clear that everything is very normal, very quaint. A simple life with no ripples. Then comes the curve ball, the author tells us that Ella files for "divorce in the fall of 2008 after twenty years or marriage."
Some people say they read a story because they want to be caught off guard or surprised. This story lays out the main thread right in the beginning. We know that Ella will divorce her husband, but what we don't know is
why. The why is important; it is a question that will lure a reader on and keep them invested in the story.
The first part after that is titled "Ella" which will became a recurrent theme in the book. Each "chapter" will have a character's name to keep you up to date with who is narrating. Each chapter also has the location, day and year. This first Ella chapter sets the scene and brings us into the action of the story. It leads us to the next part of the book which is the real trip. Because "The Forty Rules of Love" is not just any book, oh no, it is a book
inside a book!
Ella takes a job as a reader for a literary agency and she is given her first assignment. A manuscript from a certain writer named A.Z. Zahara and his book is called Sweet Blasphemy: A Novel. Thus begins the second main thread of the story. While modern day Ella is facing her own struggles, we are also given the chapters of Aziz' book which also alternates characters. There is even a foreword and a title page which make the book inside a book idea more poignant. And the first chapter of Aziz' novel? It is narrated by "The Killer" how is that for a hook. The killer explains that he has killed a man, a dervish, and that event has haunted him even years later.
Follow that with "Part One: Earth, The Things that are Solid, Absorbed, and Still" and you know that this is a deep story with a purpose, because no writer goes to the trouble of dividing their story into parts without a purpose. There is so much symbolism and aphorisms in the book that it may take you longer to read. This isn't a story to be skimmed. It is a story to be cradled and loved and cried over.
Now I'm going to go even more in-depth and there are
spoilers, so if you haven't read it or if you don't like to read spoilers before you read a book, then you can stop reading now.
