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A review by emilyusuallyreading
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
3.0
What I Liked
Anita Amirrezvani writes beautifully. Truly, she paints poetry with her words. I love how she always includes Iranian folk tales and weaves them through the chapters of her novels. The writing itself is lovely.
It is clear Amirrezvani knows her history as well. 16th century Iran is vividly laid out before the reader's eyes.
What I Didn't Like
There is almost too much history and politics. As someone who is not remotely an Iranian (or 16th century anywhere, for that matter) historian, I was at a loss with all of the titles and positions and tribes and laws that are discussed in this book without explanation. I often found myself re-reading paragraphs and thinking, "What is this talking about?"
There is some smut in Equal of the Sun, something that I do not care to read. While it is fairly easy to skip over those few pages, it weakened the literature aspect of this novel for me. In my opinion, a compelling piece of literature doesn't need detailed, steamy sex. Just give me heart-wrenching passion and realistic characters and I can become perfectly caught up in the book.
Anita Amirrezvani writes beautifully. Truly, she paints poetry with her words. I love how she always includes Iranian folk tales and weaves them through the chapters of her novels. The writing itself is lovely.
It is clear Amirrezvani knows her history as well. 16th century Iran is vividly laid out before the reader's eyes.
What I Didn't Like
There is almost too much history and politics. As someone who is not remotely an Iranian (or 16th century anywhere, for that matter) historian, I was at a loss with all of the titles and positions and tribes and laws that are discussed in this book without explanation. I often found myself re-reading paragraphs and thinking, "What is this talking about?"
There is some smut in Equal of the Sun, something that I do not care to read. While it is fairly easy to skip over those few pages, it weakened the literature aspect of this novel for me. In my opinion, a compelling piece of literature doesn't need detailed, steamy sex. Just give me heart-wrenching passion and realistic characters and I can become perfectly caught up in the book.