Review: There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

I don’t often do a lot of highlighting (electronically) when I’m reading, but this was that rare book where I found myself marking numerous passages. It’s beautiful and complex, with recurring themes and symbols woven across multiple timelines, characters, and settings. I loved Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees, and now I have a new must-read author.

The book begins in ancient Mesopotamia, with a raindrop falling on the head of Nineveh’s intellectual but tyrannical king ...