Review: The Book of Fire (by Christy Lefteri)

My Rating: 5 stars

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that, like me, you were able to spend some time immersed in a good book! :-)

Kicking off the new year, I've been busy with my studies, but I did get the chance to squeeze in one of the January 2024 ARCs on my list, so I'm happy about that.

I chose to start my reading year with a new release from an author whose works I've loved since reading her debut novel, The Beekeeper of Aleppo, a few years back. In my opinion, Christy Lefteri is an underrated and under appreciated author whose works everyone should be reading.  She writes in a way that is atmospheric and poetic, with beautifully-rendered descriptions of time and place that make us, the readers, feel completely immersed.  

Lefteri sets her third novel in a Greek village where a devastating wildfire has ravaged the once-idyllic forest, destroying nearly everything — living and non-living — in its path. A close and loving family used to live in that forest:  Irini, a talented musician who could play the most beautiful songs with the instruments handed down over generations from her father and grandfather; her husband Tasso, an artist who could paint the forest so realistically that the sights and sounds of nature seemed to come alive just looking at the paintings; and their 10-year-old daughter Chara, a happy and playful girl whose name means "joy." Along with their devoted greyhound Rosalie, the family lived in a picturesque environment surrounded by the beauty of nature.  However, on a fateful day that starts off just like any other day, their paths cross with the fire and within hours, their lives are changed forever.  Their bungalow in the forest is destroyed (along with all of Irini's instruments), Tasso's hands are burned to the point that he can no longer paint, Chara endures second-degree burns that leave horrific scars, and Irini's father-in-law Lazaros goes missing (he's presumed dead).  Many of their friends and neighbors are either dead or missing, while those who survived are physically and emotionally scarred for life.  As if that were not enough, everywhere they turn, they are forced to witness the charred remains of the destruction around them  — the trees burned down to stumps, the barren ground where abundant plants and flowers once grew, and the pervasive, choking smell of burnt things.  Months later, the family (and the village) haven't completely come to terms with all they lost, but are actively trying to rebuild and move on with their lives.  It is during this time that Irini inadvertently encounters the man responsible for destroying their lives — a land speculator she refers to as Mr. Monk, who had started the fire on a small piece of land he didn't own in the hopes of acquiring it (illegally), not expecting it to rage out of control like it ended up doing.  Mr. Monk is mysteriously injured and appears to be on the brink of death — when Irini finds out who he is, she makes a last minute decision out of anger, which follows her for the rest of the story.  The investigation that follows will bring to light some painful truths about the community and its interactions with its surrounding environment.

As she did with her previous two novels, Lefteri once again delivers a hauntingly beautiful, emotional story that is at once heartbreaking and poignant, but also hopeful in its portrayal of humanity in the wake of tragedy.  Lefteri has a gift for writing about real-life (often controversial and difficult) issues relevant to society in a way that is thought-provoking and meaningful, yet not heavy-handed or preachy — in The Beekeeper of Aleppo, it was immigration and refugees fleeing from the situation in Syria; in Songbirds, it was the exploitation of foreign domestic workers in Cyprus; now in The Book of Fire, she explores the relationship of humans with nature and the wide-ranging effects that our actions can have on our environment.  I live in Southern California and remember the deadly 2018 wildfires that Lefteri mentions in her Author's Note (which, by the way, is a must-read in and of itself) as well as the many other fires that have occurred in the region the past few years, so this story definitely resonated with me.  The dilemma that Irini faces in the story is a difficult one and I will admit that if I were in her shoes, I would have probably struggled as well.  I finished this book a few days ago, yet I'm still thinking about this story and its endearingly-drawn characters. Needless to say, I will definitely be on the lookout for what Lefteri comes out with next!

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

Review: Songbirds (by Christy Lefteri)

My Rating: 4 stars

Even though it's been nearly two years since I read Christy Lefteri's award-winning second novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo, one of the things that has continued to stay with me whenever I think of that book is the affecting, haunting nature of the story.  While I might not remember every detail of the plot, I do remember the gut-wrenching emotions that the story evoked.  I was moved by Nuri's and Afra's heartrending story detailing their harrowing journey from war-torn Syria to Great Britain, trying their best to survive as refugees in a foreign and not necessarily welcoming country. Lefteri's newest work, Songbirds, is written in a similar vein — a poignant, heartbreaking story that centers on foreign domestic workers on the Greek island of Cyprus.  

Nisha Jayakody is a young Sri Lankan widow who, forced by the circumstances of dire poverty and desperation as well as a desire to provide a better life for her beloved daughter Kumari, signs up with an agency that places her as a maid and nanny for Petra, a pregnant businesswoman living on Cyprus whose husband had also just died.  In addition to taking care of Petra's household, Nisha also helps raise Petra's daughter Aliki.  Yiannis is a poacher who secretly traps songbirds, a protected species, and sells them on the black market.  After meeting and falling in love with Nisha, Yiannis longs to get out of the dangerous, illegal trade he is in and marry the woman he loves.  But it is not that easy — due to Nisha's status as a foreign maid, her life actually doesn't belong to her, but rather to her employer, who has the right to fire Nisha if her relationship with Yiannis were discovered.  Like so many of her fellow domestic worker friends, Nisha has few options and while she is treated well by Petra, their relationship is a perfunctory one in that Petra knows nearly nothing about this woman who had taken such good care of her and raised as well as loved her daughter as her own. It is not until one night, when Nisha goes out and doesn't return, effectively vanishing into thin air, that Petra and Yiannis understand not just the profound impact Nisha had on their lives, but also the reality of who she was as a person.

Though the story here is about Nisha, the narrative is actually told from the alternating perspectives of Petra and Yiannis.  Lefteri writes in her author's note that this way of telling Nisha's story — the piecing "together of her existence through the memories of others" — was deliberate, and after understanding what Lefteri was trying to do, it made me appreciate the story more (I highly recommend reading the Author's Note after finishing the book, as Lefteri discusses the inspiration behind the story — it's definitely not to be missed!).  One of the things I love about this story is the fact that it gives a chance for the voices of the most vulnerable to be heard as well as understood — in this way, I found Nisha and her story to be tremendously powerful.

Having said all that, while I did find this story to be both moving and heart wrenching, I felt it didn't quite reach the level of emotional depth that The Beekeeper of Aleppo did.  Of course, that's not to say that Songbirds wasn't an emotional experience because it definitely was —but it didn't leave me speechless like Lefteri's previous work did.  Nevertheless, it's still a beautifully written, absolutely worthy read, one that I highly recommend.  A word of caution though: there are some scenes that describe cruelties done to the songbirds that are troubling and difficult to read — for those who might be bothered by these types of depictions, might be a good idea to gloss over them (luckily those scenes are few and far between).

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

Review: The Beekeeper of Aleppo (by Christy Lefteri)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

Let me start off by saying that this is a book everyone needs to read, especially given the current environment we live in with the immigration issue at the forefront of topics recently here in the Western part of the world.  Though I have read plenty of books over the years about the immigrant experience from different viewpoints, including from the refugee and asylum perspectives, few of those books have been as haunting and affecting as this one.  The story of Nuri and Afra and their harrowing journey to escape the conflict in Syria, the tremendous losses they endure one right after the other --  the loss of their home, their livelihoods, their family, their precious child, even their own souls – ordinary citizens caught up in horrible circumstances not of their making, already having to suffer through so much loss and devastation, yet somehow still finding the will to live, to push ahead through the grief and the desperation and finally arrive at their destination, only to face an uncertain future.  This is one of those stories that reminded me once again just how much we often take for granted as we go about our daily lives and how we should be so much more grateful than we usually are for everything we do have.

This was a heart-wrenching, emotional read that brought tears to my eyes more than once, yet it was also thought-provoking and relevant to so much of what is going on in the world today.  I will admit that it did take me a little while to get used to the book’s unique format (with the last word of each chapter acting as the bridge that starts the flashback to the past in the next chapter), but the beautifully written story as well as the realistically rendered characters (all of whom I adored) more than made up for my brief struggle with the format.   Nuri and Afra are characters that I know will stay with me for a long time to come, as the penetrating sadness around their story is one that is difficult to forget.  With that said though, there were also moments of hope amidst the desperation, such as when Nuri and Afra finally make it to their destination (not a spoiler, since we are already told this from the very first page) and are met with much kindness from the people they end up staying with at the refugee center as they wait for their asylum applications to be processed.  These interactions at the refugee center in present time brought a certain element of hope to the story, which helped to balance out the overwhelming sadness of the past narrative recounting Nuri and Afra’s harrowing journey – at the same time, it made their story all the more poignant and powerful.   

Part of what made this story feel so realistic was the fact that the author Christy Lefteri based a lot of it on her previous experience working with refugees as a UNICEF-sponsored volunteer in Athens, Greece.  In addition to that though, there was also Lefteri’s personal connection as a daughter of refugees (both her parents fled war-torn Cyprus back in the 1970s), which combined with her volunteer experience to produce such a powerful and inspiring story.  I know my review probably doesn’t say a whole lot, but in a way, the vagueness is a bit deliberate, as I feel the story already speaks for itself and nothing I say will be able to do it justice.  All I’m going to say is that this book definitely deserves to be read – and sooner rather than later! 

Received ARC from Ballantine Books (Random House) via NetGalley.