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miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Im gonna be really honest with you my dudes, i am very confused.
Tbf i dont think thats the books fault completely, theres just a lot of different perspective and occasional timeshifts which arent very clearly announced and when its the audiobook it is even less clear cause its just the same person reading still but whoopsie theyre actually a different person.
Also i have no clue who is who right now/who is related to who, I thought i had it and then no im confused again.
The actual writing was good and the plot was p compelling and emotional tho, definitely not a bad book!!! (Im just confused)
Tbf i dont think thats the books fault completely, theres just a lot of different perspective and occasional timeshifts which arent very clearly announced and when its the audiobook it is even less clear cause its just the same person reading still but whoopsie theyre actually a different person.
Also i have no clue who is who right now/who is related to who, I thought i had it and then no im confused again.
The actual writing was good and the plot was p compelling and emotional tho, definitely not a bad book!!! (Im just confused)
‘How is it that men can be as innocent as children when it comes to women’s tricks, yet be responsible for all the violence in the world?’
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Death, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Misogyny, Blood, Colonisation, Violence, Confinement, Grief, and War
marga_runa's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Death, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Genocide, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, and War
jayisreading's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
For me, this book is one of those books that I need to have read while in the right mindset. Unfortunately, I was not in that mindset to fully appreciate this book, so the reading experience ended up being a grueling one. I really wish it wasn’t the case because the writing was beautiful— And that’s a positive thing I can say, which is that Göksel delivered lyricism and emotion phenomenally. It was also a fascinating exploration of a part of Turkish history that I knew nothing about (though, that said, I knew very little about it to begin with).
I’m usually okay with books that are slow-paced, time jumps, and/or a huge cast of characters. If what I wrote sounds appealing, then it might be worth checking out this book. For me, the book ended up being too slow, so I kept putting it down (and, again, I really think it’s because I wasn’t in the right mindset). As a result, I frequently forgot what happened and who the characters were (and there were so many). This is a book you need to read in chunks, otherwise, you’ll quickly lose track of what’s happening. I think my more “objective” critique that isn’t a “it’s not you, it’s me” one is that the time jumps made the story difficult to follow at times; more so because I kept putting the book down. It all starts coming together towards the end, but I’m not sure it was worth the slog.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Suicide, Xenophobia, Drug use, and Racism
Minor: Rape
nini23's review
4.25
The Silence of Scheherazade is a sweeping historical fiction set in the ancient vibrant city of Smyrna where Orthodox Greeks, Muslims Turks, Armenians, Levantine Europeans, Jews, Circassians lived in harmony in the 'Pearl of the Orient.' Translated from Turkish by Betsy Göksel. The novel opens in 1905 with a birth but moves fluidly through decades. The main culminating event is the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922 but also in the background is the military campaign by Greece into Asia Minor and Smyrna in 1919 as part of the Megáli Idéa, encouraged by Allied forces. I happened to be reading The Archeologist and Selected Sea Stories by Andreas Karkavitsas, a late 19th/early 20th century Greek writer which provided some context from the Greek perspective on the aftermath of this Greater Greece ideal.
The blurb is a little misleading because most of the story actually concentrates on the Levantine Europeans the French Lamarcks, especially Edith Lamarck and her Indian spy lover Avinash Pillai, and a Greek teenager Panagiota with her family. Sumbul a Cirassian married into a Turkish family gets only a bit of the spotlight while the fourth family of Armenian midwife Meline is solely important in the role she had in the birth story secret. Nevertheless the different neighbourhoods, cultures, sights, languages of Smyrna come alive off the pages.
We want no such thing as "a Turk", "a Greek" or "a Bulgarian" - if you divide humanity like that, we will be crying tears of blood.
The blurb is a little misleading because most of the story actually concentrates on the Levantine Europeans the French Lamarcks, especially Edith Lamarck and her Indian spy lover Avinash Pillai, and a Greek teenager Panagiota with her family. Sumbul a Cirassian married into a Turkish family gets only a bit of the spotlight while the fourth family of Armenian midwife Meline is solely important in the role she had in the birth story secret. Nevertheless the different neighbourhoods, cultures, sights, languages of Smyrna come alive off the pages.
We want no such thing as "a Turk", "a Greek" or "a Bulgarian" - if you divide humanity like that, we will be crying tears of blood.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Death, War, and Grief
lian's review
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual violence, Violence, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Xenophobia, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Rape, Racism, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Murder, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Infidelity, Genocide, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Death, Child death, Child abuse, Blood, Antisemitism, Drug use, Drug abuse, Addiction, and Animal death
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