Review by foxonabook - The Stationery Shop

Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.

This isn’t for me.

The writing is superficial and everything feels rushed.
The characters also lack any depth or dimension, making it hard to be invested in the protagonist’s story and blending all of the other characters into one. I also don’t like how the author is using an undefined, ill-described mental illness to explain an equally poorly defined character’s rudeness. It’s clear that the character is meant to be unlikeable, but mental illness is not an excuse for abhorrent and abusive behaviour. It’s also a cheap trope for what’s meant to be the book’s ‘villain’.
The dialogue feels forced and unrealistic, and I think it’s because the author is using the dialogue to compensate for the other aspects that the writing is lacking.
This doesn’t feel like a historical fiction romance. Whole scenes are skimmed over and I’d have liked the author to have spent more time on the scene setting and creating the right atmosphere for the different scenes. Instead, little is dedicated to truly encapsulating the rich, warm Iranian culture and on imparting what life was like in 1950s Teheran. This book could be set anywhere and at anytime in modern history for how little ambiance there is in the book.
Lastly, at even only 25% through, this book already feels like a soap opera which in and of itself isn’t a big deal, but combined with the above just makes it hard to push through.