Unhappy, married housewife Ella who lives in modern Massachusetts, works for a literary agency and is assigned a book named “Sweet Blasphemy” by Aziz Zahara. The book is about the wandering dervish, Shams, who comes to be the close companion of Rumi the famous Persian poet. Shafak’s novel goes back and forth between the two narratives of Shams and Ella. Shams dispenses his forty rules one by one as he journeys through his 13th-century world from Baghdad to Konya and Ella communicates with Aziz to expand her own journey.

A simple introduction to Sufism, Rumi, and Shams of Tabriz.

The parallel stories just didn't work for me.

Nothing. I read this book and that was that.

This book made me feel proud of myself for sticking it out until the end.

The characters seemed boring and bland. The descriptions seemed tedious and "told" too much rather than "showing".

I had a hard time reading this book. I constantly resisted the urge to skip chapters.

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Created Sep 29, 2018 at 3:50pm • Submit your own review...