
If I could give it more than a Pick, I would. Having grown up in Cyprus, I was expecting it to speak to me personally and culturally. What stunned me was the sheer beauty of Shafak's words when she describes all the pain, animosity and destruction; how she keeps humanity's best traits - love, hope, empathy - alive under the rubbles of human folly. This book made me cry, laugh (especially Meryem's oh so Mediterranean proverbs), but above all, hope.