Bookfanatic reviewed on
Loved this! Five stars from me. It's a book that I'm going to keep for myself. This book evokes all your senses. I can't say too many books have done that for me. If you're looking for something relevant, imaginative, and insightful, get this book. It's a good book for Americans to read especially in this current political climate.
Author Diana Abu-Jabar's Sirine, the blonde green-eyed, American-born half Iraqi heroine, is the chef of a small Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles, popular with university students and exiled immigrants. Crescent is a love story between Sirine and Han, a handsome exiled Iraqi intellectual longing for the country he can longer visit. But this story is more than your typical girl meets boy love story. It's about community, making a new life in a foreign country, longing, loss, feasts and fables. I felt changed after I read this book. That to me is a hallmark of a great book. The descriptions of the food, making of the food, the dinners all made me so hungry. My only complaint is that the author should have included some of the delectable recipes from the story in the book.
Author Diana Abu-Jabar's Sirine, the blonde green-eyed, American-born half Iraqi heroine, is the chef of a small Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles, popular with university students and exiled immigrants. Crescent is a love story between Sirine and Han, a handsome exiled Iraqi intellectual longing for the country he can longer visit. But this story is more than your typical girl meets boy love story. It's about community, making a new life in a foreign country, longing, loss, feasts and fables. I felt changed after I read this book. That to me is a hallmark of a great book. The descriptions of the food, making of the food, the dinners all made me so hungry. My only complaint is that the author should have included some of the delectable recipes from the story in the book.
