Reviews - El apicultor de Alepo

4.97k reviews for:

El apicultor de Alepo

Christy Lefteri

4.13 AVERAGE

alexandra_alexandridou's review against another edition

5.0

An eye opening book.
Left me with many feelings.
Was wondering why it's not translated in Greek, now I suspect why.

septemberheartflakes's review against another edition

5.0

In July the earth was parched, but in our garden we had apricot and almond trees and tulips and irises and fritillaries.

Reading this book in the safety and shelter of my own home made me realise just how much I had to be grateful. And how much I did not know or thought enough about the world.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo follows Nuri and Afra, fleeing from Aleppo because the country was crumbling, threatening to take them down with the soil. It begins with the normal life that the family built and how the impending war slowly progresses into the doom it promises. We are flashed forward and back to Nuri's journey as a refuge with Afra and their arrival in United Kingdom.

I wasn't going to write a review. Because there was this crushing fear that I won't do it justice. But here I am writing this. It needs to make home in more people. If you're reading this, it's your sign to pick this up.

The writing is beautiful, ethereal, breathtaking in the simplest possible way. The descriptions were minimal but each sentence, each element was intentional. There were symbols and metaphors mingled with everything like dash of bright colours in a monochrome landscape.

I was whipping out my tabs and sticky note, tapping it on every thing like a madwoman while reading this.

The first time I read this, I was freaking out with my friend thinking our books have missing pages. Turns out it just has a unique flashback system. The page ends with an incomplete sentence just before the flashback and the next part starts with an incomplete sentence. There is a word printed in a page in the middle of the parts and that word connects both of the parts. I was so mindblown when I figured this out. It's so deep yet so subtle.

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I think what got me so into this book is the way Christy Lefteri described the trauma in the book. Everything was so delicately addressed, it was as if she was putting a fragile, stingless bee in our hands and letting us study it. It was there for us to unravel and discover between the lines but in a way, even if we don't want to, it's okay.

I might sound crazy but this book has a gentle touch to it despite being head-on and violently real. It feels like it's asking permission before it hits you with Nuri and Afra's pain.

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Let me elaborate. Nuri and Afra handled their grief differently and in turn. Christy used different parallels/ syndromes to describe them. Afra's blindness was such a devastating way of freezing the memory of the country before war. Nuri was terrified of Afra because of the scenes she remembered before she turned blind when all he could see was death and carcass houses.

When Nuri told Afra of the death of a boy he saw on the way home, she held onto the details.

"She was postponing the inevitable, holding on to the living boy for as long as possible, keeping him alive. I let her sit in silence for a few moments, while she turned it around in her mind."

She only see what she wanted, blind to the rest.

The blindness was a symbol of not wanting to let go.

Nuri's condition is something that is quite hard to talk about without spoiling anything. I just wanted to say that his grief was so faded that you could actually miss it. I missed it. Until I slowly realised what was actually going on.

If Afra's coping mechanism for grief was her refusal, Nuri's was his denial.

Then there was this mother they met, Angeliki, who kept insisting that her blood was poisoned when she was in perfect health. Her son was taken from her. It broke her.

Her grief showed in her insistence that her blood was poisoned was a symbol of how grief demands a home, filling the empty hole where that person used to be.

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Other than that there was the repeated mentions of the key Mohammad was carrying. I was seeing it as a metaphor of hope, or the ability to hope, while reading the book.

"Then my dad gave me a key and said go to a house, and he told me where it was, and he said to go inside and lock the door. But when I got there the house didn't have a door."

"Did you find the key?" he says.

"There was no key. They were flowers."

This one hit me because no matter how pretty flowers are, they were not keys.

And in the end when Nuri said he forgot the key and Afra said it was them that he forgot, it came full circle.

"I'm sorry I forgot the key."
"You forgot about us"

This book, is just... c'mon just read it.

charlottelburton's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

beccasullivan's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional inspiring slow-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: Complicated

iceberg0's review against another edition

5.0

A striking and compelling love story set in the refugee experience.

calturner's review against another edition

5.0

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri is a powerful and moving story that will haunt you long after the final page has been turned. A gripping, relevant and beautifully written story that highlights the resilience of the human spirit, this is a book that moves and inspires, taking you on a journey that encompasses everything from loss to untold bravery.

With memorable characters that you can’t help but fall in love with, Christy Lefteri has written an exhilarating story that captured my imagination from the very first page, leaving a profound and emotional impact on me as the story finally drew to a close.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo is without a doubt a heartbreaking read that’s full of horror and despair, but is also a tale filled to the brim with hope and love that will stay with me for a long time to come. The powerful writing brought this hauntingly beautiful, moving and scarily relevant story vividly to life, allowing a deeper understanding of asylum seekers and shining a spotlight on the real people behind the headlines.

A moving, inspiring and heartachingly beautiful novel that I would highly recommend.

ab_1996's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I am really glad that I read this book and I think the author did a really good bringing this subject to light because its something that is all over the news and its "normal" but its not, its disgusting the life's that these people live, a bomb coming through their roof, walking down the street and seeing body's floating in rivers. Not remaining the last time you had a shower.

I feel that some of the traumatising things that happen to the characters we've skimmed over and the emotion was added to the story. But I did love how the author had written Afras character, how she had no emotion and I think that when somebody has been through so much they become numb.

I was disappointed by the ending. I almost feel like it was rushed.