Hi all how are you doing today? Another beautiful day unraveled itself and I hope you would have lived it to the fullest. I’m back to blogging on another cloudy morning with a steaming hot cup of masala tea. Today I’m writing about the cutest love story I’ve read so far, ‘the stationery shop’. This is the nineteenth book I’ve finished reading this year. Yesterday I blogged about the seventeenth read of this year, and the eighteenth book is a marathi read. So I thought it would make sense if I write a marathi blog about that book. However I’m feeling extra lazy today to take efforts of typing in Marathi today, so instead I’m writing about the next read today. This book intrigued me with its title and pretty cover. I’ve always been in love with stationery items and books and most probably I’ve spent most money in stationery shops. So when kindle suggested this book to me, it was obvious to grab it to read. I read this book on kindle (so an ebook). It was very engaging, and a medium sized book, so I read it entirely in four days.

The book takes us back in 1953, and forth in 2013. It’s a tale from Tehran, the capital of Iran and then it takes us to USA. Like I’ve never said it enough, I love reading about life of women in gulf countries, I’ll say it again. A tale from Iran was another reason why I picked this book. This tale is about Roya and Bahman, a couple of seventeen year olds, living in Tehran in 1953. An era when Iran was way different and better than it is today. When the revolutions were happening and the country was making its way to peace with the help of newly established democracy. With the newly found free thought, there two young ones connect to each other, and fall in love. For what first appears to be a mere teenage fling, turns out to be a serious love affair. The young love blooms in a stationery shop, where they first meet. A shop owned by Mr. Fakri, witnesses their relationship, from the first encounter to their first kiss, from first time being apart, to exchanging letters. This shop is like a center stage of their story, where things happen.

Then as the political situation changes and everything takes a turn for the worse, Roya and Bahman fell apart. Bahman’s political involvement puts everyone around him in danger. Their engagement breaks up and it pushes Roya in the deepest sorrow. This is the period of the biggest miss understandings which changes their lives forever. They live miles apart, and get married to different people, yet they stay in tune with each other’s lives through a single thread which connects them, their friend. They spend their lives, with their own spouses and grown their families, but always keep wondering what if they never fell apart. Fate directs them to meet each other again, when they are near the end of their lives, in 2013. They meet again and they recall everything, they resolve many misunderstandings, and discover many conspiracies those were happening around them, without their knowledge. As the clouds lift, they see the love they shared even more clearly. This is such a beautiful moment, and it’s written with such a grace.

Apart from these two center characters, every other character is painted beautifully. The sister drama, how Roya and her sister, Zari are opposite poles of personalities, and spent most of their teenage criticizing one another, yet in difficult times they stood strong for each other. Roya’s supporting parents, Bahman’s mother and her struggles, Bahman’s understanding father, Roya’s husband, Bahman’s caretaker at the center, and many other, all these characters build this book and create a new world for us to experience. The book goes back and forth, and things are unraveled very strategically to us. When the book goes back in time, to Bahman’s mother’s teenage, it appears a different era although. Near the end when you’ve connected all the dots, and finding out the real story along with Roya and Bahman in their 70’s, the book becomes most thrilling. It has every flavor you can ask for, from drama to love, from suspense to thriller, from faith to misunderstandings and from Iran to USA. All these contrasts give the book a new depth. The end itself is very soothing, and lives us satisfied with the book.

I loved this book, and it is going on my ‘to re-read on bad days’ list. The next thing I did after reading this book, was finding more books by Marjan Kamali, and get them. Hopefully another book will turn out as beautiful as this one. I was super excited to write a book experience of this book, and I can already feel the excitement of reading the next. More about another book in the next blog. Till then keep reading, stay positive and stay safe.