The Stationery Shop (2019 original; edició 2019)

This book.
Just wow.
This was such an emotional roller coaster to get through and I definitely shed tears throughout. I can only be thankful my copy is digital and the pages couldn't be ruined, as I can promise they would be with how much I cried.
I felt so fully immersed and once I started reading, I couldn't stop. I read this in one highly emotional sitting and connected deeply with Roya and her struggles. When she moves so far from home, I thought of my own journey in the name of education. When I learned of both Roya and Badri's experiences as mothers, I thought of the lost babies of those I love and also the ones who lived, who are growing and changing the world, even if it's just my world right now. This is the first time in a long-time I've been so moved by a book and I almost wish I had never read it, if only so I could experience it for the first time once more. ( )

The Stationery Shop is a sweet story that takes place in Tehran, California and Boston. The Khanom sisters, Roya and Zari, are coming of age in Tehran. They are quite different in their outlook on life. Roya is the heroine of the book and her story concentrates on the lost love of her first boyfriend, Bahman Aslan.

Roya is a dreamy, idealistic seventeen-year-old living in 1953 Tehran. There is plenty of political upheaval as the Shah and the National Front fight for supremacy. Roya is not interested in politics and finds a literary oasis in the neighborhood stationery shop owned by Mr. Fakhri. There she finds pens, paper and Persian poetry books and she visits the shop every Tuesday afternoon when school is over. One day a cute boy comes in and is given a stack of papers to deliver by Mr. Fakhri. Bahman Aslan catches Roya's heart even before they are introduced. Their romance blossoms under the watchful eye of Mr. Fakhri. A few months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square where violence erupts as a result of a coup d'erat that gives the Shah all of the power. In the packed crowd Roya does not see Bahman. She tries for several weeks to contact him but is not successful. In her grief Roya moves to California with her sister to attend college. There she meets Walter Archer. Roya and Walter marry and move to Boston so that Walter can attend law school. They live there and build a family. Sixty years after moving to America, Roya finds Bahman in a nursing home nearby her home where both of them meet and learn what ultimately happened earlier in their lives.

I love Middle Eastern novels. Most of their traditions, and especially food, charm me. I loved reading how Mrs. Khanom prepared the Iranian traditional foods. It makes me want to visit an Iranian restaurant near my home and I probably will go there on the weekend. The closeness of the families in the novel is also heartwarming. It's too bad that this part of their culture did not transplant well in the U. S.

I felt sorry for Walter. His wife could not show herself fully to him no matter how long they were married. He accepted her as she is. I also felt sorry for Roya because she could not get over her first love. We all have a first love that lives in our memory but most of us can move on. I didn't understand why Roya couldn't. There must be something about her personality that prevents her from feeling fully. Zari is a secondary character and we see her as the complete opposite of her sister. Zari has the ability to quickly recover from any downturns in her life. She sees people clearly but she is not bothered by them.

The three settings, Tehran, California and Boston, did not seem all that important to the story. The only thing about the Tehran setting that moved me was the descriptions of the food and how they were made. I think, though, that family could be a setting here. It's the family binds that make this story touching.

I loved this novel and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars. It is recommended highly, primarily to women. ( )

Imagine The Notebook, but in Tehran, and with a not so happy ending. ( )

The book jacket is correct when it says that this novel is “beautiful and poignant,” but I must remember that “poignant” is book-jacket-speak for “really sad.” It is a love story, but a thwarted one, a relationship that others thought should never be. And though the main protagonists are Roya and Brahman, there are others who fall in love, and whose relationships are doomed as well. And then there are those whose marriages are arranged and are not in love at all. The novel starts out slowly. Indeed, if not for the fact that this was a book club selection for me, I would have abandoned it after Part 1. Perhaps if I had been more familiar with the politics and customs of Iran, the book would have been more appealing from the beginning. The characters’ personalities are gradually developed as the chapters unfold, but not understanding them from the beginning didn’t help in their appeal. The story vacillates from various time periods and is told by different characters. Some things just don’t make sense until later chapters in the story. There is really no big reveal, but a series of small “ah-ha!” moments that readers may have suspected. The novel definitely much improves as it winds its way to its conclusion. And the conclusion makes the whole book worthwhile. ( )

A very enjoyable read. The author masterfully creates scenes using aromas, sounds, light, and weather. Her characters are well developed and believable. There are plenty of twists and turns to understanding how and why these characters made the choices they did or interacted as they did. This is a very unique story. The setting in Iran in the 1960s and later in the US was interesting, as well. I enjoyed the cultural details and how those cultural expectations influenced the story. ( )