Still sniffling as I write my review. The Stationery Shop is such a beautiful story I was consumed from the very beginning. Marjan Kamali is such a good storyteller and the book flowed perfectly between the different parts of the book as well as the many characters. The love story is something right out of a Nicholas Sparks book, and I hope one day they make this into a movie, so I can ugly cry in the theater.
Life as a teenager is never easy, but growing up in Tehran in the middle of a political battle makes things much more difficult. It’s not safe in her town and Roya’s parents worry about her and her sister. They want their girls to have the best schooling so they can go to college and make something of themselves. Roya takes refuge after school at The Stationery Shop where she loves to browse the aisles of fountain pens, writing paper and books. Especially the poetry section.Mr.Fakhri is the owner and takes great pride in his shop and its contents. When a young boy Roya’s age comes running into the shop, Roya is immediately struck by feelings even she can’t explain. Mr. Fakhri can see an interest between the two, so he decides to make himself scarce when they are in the store together, so they can speak freely and build on their friendship.
Roya and Bahman quickly fall in love in the most beautiful and organic love, true soul mates from the very beginning, but have to struggle with what’s going on politically as well as Bahman’s mother who does not approve of the marriage to Roya. After their engagement party Bahman goes missing, and Roya has no idea what happened to him. She goes to the stationary shop to look for him, and Mr.Fakhri gives her a special book of poetry, and inside is a letter from Bahman explaining why he had to leave, but filled with love and the promise to return quickly. The two will spend time writing letters back and forth, talking about their love for one another and dreams of their future. Roya has no idea how Mr.Fakhri gets these letters back and forth, but she is so thankful for his help.
Roya receives a letter from Bahman telling her to meet him at the square, that he will be returning and they will go get married immediately. What follows will change the course of both of their lives forever.
The Stationery Shop is emotional and will truly touch your heart. The story is put into different parts, and two different time lines, but it has the best flow of any book I’ve read recently. I loved the characters, the culture, and of course the romantic in me loves the emphasis on the letters Roya and Bahman wrote to each other. With today’s technology handwriting letters is old school, but nothing beats the feeling of a card, or beautiful stationary, being able to see the person’s handwriting and read the letter they took time to compose. I enjoyed this book so much I will defiantly be choosing this for my book club after the book comes out in June.

Highly encourage everyone to read this book, could not put it down. One of the best books I have read this year.

Bahman and Roya and their love story and how life's obstacles and family can alter our decisions and our lives outcomes makes it very relatable, loving, yet sometimes sad.

Hope to read more by this author in the future.

This is a wonderful book. It's a love story, but it's also a portrayal of a culture and the aftermaths of the ouster of the Shah. The plot line is interesting and particularly the back stories of the characters. I would highly recommend it.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love lost and deeply mourned by an Iranian couple who eventually reconnect at the end of their lives. The back stories of the people who meddles to prevent their marriage are told in flashbacks.

Beautiful novel with well written characters

Marjan Kamali's The Stationery Shop is a fictional reflection on the personal devastation resulting from the ongoing political upheaval in Iran over the past 65+ years - specifically in this book since the uprising against Mossadegh in 1953. The novel focuses on a young girl, Roya, who falls in love with Bahman, a boy who is going to change the world. Politically active, Bahman believes like many others that Mossadegh can improve Iran, modernize it and offer people better lives. Roya and Bahman fall in love and the course of their lives are laid out for the reader - all the way to present time - but the author also goes back, shedding light on Bahman's troubled mother and her struggles as a child.

The Stationery Shop brings to light a political history that Americans in particular might not know in great depth through the very personal love story of these two young people. I found the first half of the book a little uneven but overall, found it engaging and eye-opening in terms of how the political culture influenced everything about people's lives and how those events in the 1950s affected the changes that came later.

This book could have been so much better with some good editing and polishing of an uneven writing style. The first half of the novel is filled with unnecessary repetition. How many times is it necessary to tell us the younger sister sets her hair with newspaper strips to make it wave? It's interesting to read about cooking smells, redundancy here never ends, and descriptions of body odors and soap smells? Not necessary. Phrases like "sounds like a plan" and words like "wimpy" are anachronisms and I know because I grew up in the mid-50's.

Marjan Kamali could have written a 4 or 5 star book if the deathless love story had been more believable and less fairy-tale. Descriptions of the life-style, practices and real pictures of parents and Iranian history were so well done that you know the author can do better. And she does, in the second half of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley for an early copy and to Simon and Schuster, Gallery Books for a chance to read and review.

Book Court - Where I'm the Judge and Jury

CHARGE (What is the author trying to say?): How is love affected by loss, reconciliation, and a 1953 coup in Iran that will change their country forever?

FACTS: The book looks back on Bahman and Roya, two seventeen-year-old students who fall in love in a stationery shop in Tehran in the midst of a city in political turmoil. From the way the book is structured, we know from the beginning that their love is ill-fated and as the book unfolds, we find out why. Bahman disappears in the months leading up to their summer wedding. With this disappearance, the book shifts back into the more distant past, to the life of the owner of the stationery shop who will take on more significance than just their matchmaker. His life will prove intertwined with them in ways that can only be determined by examining the past. Unexpected relationships, twists of fate, breathtaking losses, and poignant reunions ate the book. The beautiful descriptions transport you to another place and another time. Emotions run the gamut in a book I couldn’t put down.

VERDICT (Was the author successful?): Guilty, as charged. This book is a jewel – one you won’t soon forget!

#NetGalley #StationeryShop

Read this book if you love stories where the main characters delve into their past and get their questions answered about a love lost long ago. I just started reading this book but I love it already. Kamali takes us from the present to the past with a fluid and flawless transition.

A lovely novel about relationships and life, that express those things with beauty and sorrow.
Recommended to anyone who enjoys literary and women's fiction.

5 enormous stars!!! I absolutely fell in love with this story, The Stationery Shop is a novel that will stay with you long after you finish! Marjan Kamali does a brillant job telling us Roya and Bahman’s journey- a true combination of a beautiful fairytale and gut-wrenching heartbreak. The storyline spans 60 years from Iran to the Untied States, Marjan Kamali’s descriptions are so vivid that it’s as if this novel plays out like a movie in your mind. I really enjoyed all of the characters and their stories and more importantly how Marjan Kamali intricately weaves them together. The Stationery Shop is a 5++++ star novel that is most definitely one of my top reads for 2019! I was blow away by Marjan Kamali and cannot wait to read her future novels!

This book had me in tears, and still, I never wanted it to end!! It's a beautifully captivating tale about love and loss and is also so rich in culture. It's simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting and I promise you, you will not want to put this novel down! It has continued to stick with me since the moment I finished reading it and I think it will stay with me for quite some time. Easily one of my favorite books thus far of 2019! Very excited to read more by the author.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Another good one for me. Overall this book took me on a journey that I was so glad to be apart of. The struggle and uncertainty pulled me in and kept me there for the entire length and I was sad to see it end. The author painted such a vivid picture in my mind and I didnt want it to end.

This book made me cry, and cry some more. It's an absolutely stunning work set in 1950's Tehran about love and loss, heartbreak, and finding yourself.

I liked this book, but did not love it. I was totally pulled in wanting to know why he’d left her standing in the square. It moved a little slowly for me, though, and parts required too much suspension of disbelief.

This book dives back and forth between generations and lost loves to struggle with the idea of a class system and who are we allowed to love and to marry. I found it touching that a love could last for 60 years without additional nourishment. There is a pang near the end of the book when we see how others interfered and tried to help with their relationship. I'm glad there was a sense of closure to their relationship although real life seldom seems to work that way. An interesting book with many vivid descriptions of Tehran in the 1950s.

The Stationery Shop is a testament to the endearing qualities of love and relationships -- a reminder that love is complicated, and that first loves are not easily forgotten. Written with honesty through the lens of flashback, Kamali creates a very real sense of yearning and hope despite hardship and uncertainty. Kamali's historical fiction is a lovely escape into Persian culture and is a celebration of the moments that make us human.

Roya lives in Iran with her pro-Mossadegh family. Encouraged to embrace a modern philosophy, Roya attends high school and attempts to avoid the tensions between growing political factions in 1950s Tehran. A lover of novels, Roya finds solace in the stationery shop of Mr. Fakhri. A chance meeting of Bahman Alsan, will change Roya's world as she knows it. Passionate and kind, Bahman will become the man that opens Roya's eyes to the world and will spark memories of her youth decades later.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars on GR (but mostly for editing issues, not the writing)

Kamali's "The Stationery Shop" offers a "first-hand" (albeit through fictional characters) glimpse into the events and experiences of the people surrounding the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat (of which I didn't know much until I read up on it as I read this book), which was what originally drew me to this book. I love historical fiction, and in particular, books that explore periods of history not typically written about in historical fiction (i.e., the King Henry era, WWI and II).

While I thoroughly enjoyed Kamali's descriptions of life in Tehran, her juxtaposition of Iranian culture to American culture and the budding romance between a young activist and a young woman, I found myself wishing there was more of this in later parts of the book. Once our main character, Roya, moves to the U.S., heartbroken and in the hopes of realizing her father's dream of becoming a scientist, there seems to be a drop off in any further character development of Roya, her sister Zari and even their respective love interest (i.e., it seems that she completely gives up any hope of becoming something other than a secretary after landing the B-school job. Does she really just give up on motherhood and her marriage as well after losing Marigold? What about the relationship between the sisters after Zari comes to visit from California after Marigold's death?) It seems as if a huge chunk of the book is edited out as we jump from the early years of Walter and Roya's young marriage after college to *60 years later.* Kind of big jump there folks. After Roya loses her first daughter, Marigold, to croup at the tender age of 1, we pretty much go right into Roya reuniting with Bahman 60 years later in a matter of a couple short chapters. And from there, the book seems to tumble quite quickly to the closing chapters as Roya and Bahman reconnect on his death bed.

The side stories of Claire (nursing care assistant), Mrs. Aslan (Bahman's mother) and Mr. Fakhri (stationery shop owner), while interesting, could have benefitted quite from a bit more development, even if it added another 100 pages. The reader is left wondering why they're included when they really don't add to the story (particularly Claire), except to provide a motive for Mr. Fakhri to change the love letters and then rush to the square to help Roya find Bahman. Indeed, the rush-job in explaining Mrs. Aslan and Mr. Fakhri, is so underdeveloped, it becomes glaringly obvious that the plotline is going to lead to the mixed up letters, and so loses its narrative efficacy.

On balance, while I loved Kamali's writing (with the exception of a her habit of repeating the character's thoughts/concerns in quite a few places--again could be an editing issue), I felt a few issues could have been addressed to tighten the book up: (1) Edit out some of the redundancies; (2) Fill in the gaps--develop the time between the loss of Marigold and reconnecting with Bahman; (3) Flesh out the story of the mixed letters at the end; (4) Edit out the back story of Claire --which comes quite abruptly after we spend a lot of chapters on Roya and Bahman in Tehran, so much so that I spent the first few pages of that chapter trying to remember who Claire was; (5) Flesh out or drop the side story of Bahman's mother and Mr. Fakhri, i.e., why does Fakhri feel that he is directly to blame for Mrs. Aslan's mental health issues? Besides the fact that he left her impregnated and to deal with the unwanted pregnancy on her own (it's not clear whether he even knew about the pregnancy at the time), it seems quite a jump that she becomes suicidal 20+ years from the abortion.

I applaud Ms. Kamali and this is a solid effort. I loved the topic, the characters and the history of Iran. I do think, however, that better editing could have taken this book to the next level.

An emotional moving novel.Tehran in the 1950s the lives culture families of this place and time. An emotional moving novel an author I look forward to reading more from.#netgalley#gallerybooks,

A very well written book. I could not put it down! Marjan Kamali invites you to experience what it was like in 1950s Tehran and experience the tensions, culture and everyday life. I will be definitely reading her earlier book.

I'm not a very emotional person--I'm usually left dry eyed when others are sobbing over books all around me--but this novel gutted me in the very best way possible. I am wowed by The Stationery Shop.

The story of Roya and Bahman begins when they are teenagers in 1953 in Tehran. The two fall in love, meeting in secret at the Stationery Shop. They become engaged, although the political upheaval around them and family demands threaten to tear them apart. The two decide to marry anyway, but when Roya goes to meet Bahman for their wedding, he doesn't show up. The story then moves forward--through the 1950s, into 2013--as we trace Roya's life, which has the mystery of Bahman's rejection constantly dangling over it. In 2013, they meet again in the United States, where Roya settled.

The details in this novel are exquisite. Kamali has a light touch--never does the story feel weighed down--but she paints a rich portrait of what life was like in Iran in the 1950s, with the foods, the smells, the customs. The setting is as beautifully drawn as the characters. Kamali also includes the Iranian politics of the time in an incredibly seamless manner. The upheaval plays a large part in the story but doesn't weigh it down. (In 1953, Iran was on the brink of revolution as the Shah was in power but in direct conflict with Prime Minister Mosaddegh, all the while a Communist faction looked to gain a foothold in the government.)

This novel, which I read courtesy of NetGalley, is one I didn't want to end. The images are haunting, the story both heart-breaking and uplifting. It's a story of love and family and the things we give up and the losses we deal with. I am now eager to search out more books that take place in Iran. In the meantime, I can say that though the year has only just begun, this will absolutely be one of the best books of 2019.