Title: The Beekeeper of Aleppo
Author: Christy Lefteri
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Nuri is a beekeeper in Syria. His wife, Afra, is an artist. Their life is simple, yet full of beauty and pleasure—from the early morning call to prayer to the market where Afra sells her paintings. Then war comes to Syria and destroys everything they love, including their son—and taking Afra’s sight. They must leave Syria, but the obstacles they face seem insurmountable.

They want to reach England, where Mustafa, Nuri’s lifelong friend and cousin, has an apiary, but England is the most difficult country for refugees to enter. There are dangers everywhere Nuri and Afra turn, and Nuri must navigate through his own grief and Afra’s to heal their broken marriage as they seek desperately for safety.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo started off slowly, and I almost gave up, but I’m so glad I persevered. I’m not even sure how to describe the journey Nuri and Afra experience. There is incredible loss, grief, pain but also hope in their story, and it is well-worth reading.

Christy Lefteri was born in London. The Beekeeper of Aleppo is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Ballantine Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Rating: 5 brilliantly buzzing stars

What a luminous and heartbreaking book about war and the effects on the people caught in its crosshairs. While this is often a tough read because of the circumstances that Afra and Nuri have to navigate, I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in learning more about the conditions faced by refugees from Syria as they try to flee to safer ground.

I didn’t realize all the hurdles and intermediate stops that emigrants and refugees from Syria could face as they try to make a new life for themselves far from all they’ve known. This story so warmly shares the love that the beekeeper Nuri, his artist wife Afra, and their young son, Sami have for the town of Aleppo and the life they lived there. Then war comes crashing in and everything disintegrates. The vibrant colorful city is caked in layers of gray cement dust. Nuri and his cousin Mustafa’s beloved beehives are torched one day by one side or the other in the war. It doesn’t matter who did it, the bees from 500 beehives are gone. Killings are brutal and random. Life is cheap.

Eventually Nuri convinces the now blind Afra to leave Syria and try to join Mustafa and his remaining family in England. Many harrowing legs of this journey, and the intermediate way-stations are encountered in fits and starts. The desperation to leave, and the luck-of-the-draw randomness of who eventually arrives at their destination is written in lovely prose and thoughtful descriptions. No-one arrives unscathed by the experience, but still the human will to survive and thrive pushes them forward.

The Author’s Note at the end of the book described the author’s point of view that this was a book about blindness. I’d agree. It’s about Afra’s literal blindness, Nuri’s emotional blindness, and the majority of the world’s willful blindness to the tragedies of the refugee crises going on plain site.

This should be recommended reading for everyone. The intelligence and heart with which this story is told was harrowing and uplifting at the same time.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books; and the author Christy Lefteri; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I suspect you already know this is sad- but it's beautifully written and will make you think and rethink what you know about refugees. Nuri is desperate to get his wife Afra from Aleppo to the UK, where his friend and mentor Mustafa has emigrated. Nuri and Mustafa were beekeepers in better days and Afra, in addition to caring for their young son Sami, was an artist. All that's gone now; the hives were burned, Afra is blind, and Sami is dead. Their journey is interspersed with their time in a bed and breakfast on the coast of England, where they have, mercifully arrived. The journey is a horror story, in so many ways, and you will ache for them and for the others they meet. Mohammed, a young boy who Nuri befriends, disappears, leaving behind a marble which Afra and Nuri cherish but there's a secret about him. Despite not being Syrian, a refugee, or, well, a man, Lefteri has given Nuri a strong and vital voice that will echo in your head. I liked the way the novel transitioned, although I admit I was confused at first, thinking I had a bad download. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. This is a must read- an excellent, if sorrowful, reminder of the world we live in. Be kind to someone today.

What a thought-provoking and emotional story! Nuri, a beekeeper, and his wife Afra, an artist, have a wonderful life in Aleppo, Syria —that is, until war tears their life completely apart and destroys the beautiful and peaceful existence that surrounded them. Although they love their country and would do anything to be able to remain there, they are forced to leave as the war steals from them all that they had, including their son, Sami, and Afra’s sight.

Thus, they leave their homeland behind and being the perilous journey from Aleppo to the UK to meet with Nuri’s cousin, Mustafa, who had been a mentor to Nuri and had taught him the art of beekeeping before he, too, was forced to leave his native Syria. Their terrifying journey from Syria through Turkey and Greece before reaching the UK is made to come alive through the author’s beautifully constructed prose and helps the reader focus on and understand some of the realities of refugees seeking asylum in a land far away from their beloved homeland. The author effectively alternates chapters between Nuri and Afra’s arrival in the UK to be processed for asylum and their struggles to get there, helping to paint vividly what these refugees sadly have to endure in their attempt to live under an umbrella of freedom.

This is a beautifully written and haunting novel that I highly recommend.

Nuri, a beekeeper from Aleppo and his wife Afra who was an artist are trying to reach England to seek asylum. Their son Sami was killed by a bomb and Afra lost her sight in the blast. But in order to get there, they have a perilous journey ahead as they have to travel across the seas, through Turkey and Greece, and have to face unimaginable obstacles to get to their final destination.

This book was very well written and is very appropriate for the times we are in today. Parts were hard to read, they were so sad or discouraging, but it was a very good book.

I mostly enjoyed this novel. It is really quite a sad story about the trauma that refugees suffer. It is a very interesting book and it held my attention. I think it would be a great book club book because there is a lot to unpack and talk about. One thing that really bothered me in this novel was how the last word of one chapter and the first word of the next chapter was the same word because neither sentence was complete. I found it very distracting every time I encountered it.

For example, what if I stated writing like

This

Is an example of how the chapters began and ended.

I think this was an attempt by the author to give the flashbacks more of a dreamy quality, but it just didn’t work for me. I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a moving, melodic, melancholy and profound story of refugees. Exploring unspeakable and traumatizing realities of victims from Syria, Afghanistan, African and other countries trying to find a safe landing in Europe, as well as reconcile and live with their losses. Very beautiful and sad. Thank you NetGalley for the Early Reader Copy. All opinions are my own.

A story of the hope that remains after extreme tragedy; sadly, I did not feel a connection to any of the characters.

This was a heartbreaking story that was very eye-opening for me about the types of struggles that refugees and their families face when relocating to a new country.

Captivating from the very first page,The Beekeeper of Aleppo couldn’t be more timely. A rich, gentle voice and beautiful imagery combine almost ironically with individual and systemic atrocities to convey the devastating impact of war on the population of Syria. The book has a dreamlike quality: certain sections are clear and concrete while others are more foggy, and the plot line moves around in time and place the way a dream does, or the way memories do for trauma victims.

Lefteri has done more than tell the story of Syrian refugees. She has given flesh and blood to the many instances of political unrest that we see in our news feeds. With a deft hand and a genuine heart, she has created an opportunity for readers to become more human in their understanding of current events and the acute suffering accompanies them.

This book contained really beautiful descriptions of places and it is great to bring attention to serious issues like the refugee crisis. Following Nuri and Afra and the people they meet along their route from Syria to the UK really puts a face to the realities of abuse and hardships that refugees face, as well as the realities of war in Syria. But I had a hard time fully engaging and kept putting this down to read something else. I think it rambled a bit and was longer than it had to be. Some of the dives into Nuri's mental health, while important, were hard to follow. But overall a solid book that I will recommend to others.

Have you ever read a book that captures your heart? Each beat pauses as you read every transcendent word! Absolutely a breathtaking experience reading this book. It is an absolute must read!

Nuri and Afra had a rough trip from Syria to England. I didn’t expect anything less. What really pulled at my heart was the sadness- for their past lives and the people they used to be. I cannot imagine being a refugee but The Beekeeper of Aleppo definitely gave me some insight. This is a book that will haunt my mind for some time.

Nuri (a beekeeper) and his wife Afra are Syrian refugees seeking asylum from their war torn home land. They have UK set as their ultimate destination but must travel many hardships and unbearable conditions to get there.

The story follows their journey through Greece and other overwhelmed refugee camps as they struggle to reach their destination to join relatives.

They suffer unbearable losses, Afra ends up losing her eyesight as a result of PTSD trauma. Nuri suffers from depression and PTSD as well but it manifests very differently.

The characters and their stories are authentic and varied. This is a tough story to read. Although we see much about refugees in the news and the terrible conditions and situations they endure, this brings the reader into their personal journeys and gets the us invested in their heartbreaking plight.

An excellent read. I did struggle a bit with Nuri’s PTSD as written. I was (sometimes) frustrated trying to figure out if what I was reading was imagined or Nuri’s reality, I’m sure this was the authors intent though.

This is the first book I have read on this subject. Well researched and the authors prior experience delivers us first hand knowledge on the subject.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, Ballantine Books and the author, Christy Lefteri for an advanced readers copy of this great book.

Beekeeper of Aleppo is a vivid, beautifully written account of the refugee experience that will stay with you. The first-person narrator Nuri had been a successful beekeeper in Syria, and his wife Afra was an accomplished painter, before everything changed. He lost his livelihood and his wife went blind, so they began the harrowing journey to escape.

The chapters alternate effectively. Numbered chapters take place in the UK in the present day as they await information on their refugee status, whereas the titled chapters creatively transition to the past, filling in what they endured on their journey.

I read a recent nonfiction account of displaced individuals that fell flat for trying to do too much. This novel, however, is a haunting account that keeps returning to my mind. The author's note at the close offers an insight to why this was such a captivating read; she is a novelist who volunteered at a refugee center and learned firsthand about the experiences faced by the adults and children she helped. Those stories haunted her, so she created a piece that feels more real than fictional.

There is a low-level tension humming throughout the text, and provocative questions are raised. What does it mean to survive? To live? What can we endure? What remains to push us to keep living when our families -- when our children -- are killed? When livelihoods are removed? What do we tell ourselves? What does it mean to truly see?

I highly recommend The Beekeeper of Aleppo.

(I received a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

It's usually a not great feeling when the first few pages of a story open with the main character thinking about how disappointing his wife is now that she's blind. I so wanted to enjoy this book, as it's an important story to tell right now. But I could not get into it, no matter how hard I tried.

An engrossing and important read. Lefteri's description of time and place put you in the middle of this humanitarian crisis and hopefully make you see a side you've never had to worry about for yourself. Don't go into this lightly, it takes concentration and an open heart. Pick this one up when you have the time to put in and you'll take away a lot.

Nuri and Afra are the focus of the story, with Nuri being the narrative voice: a voice that switches from past to present, reality to dream states in ways unexpected and wholly heartbreaking. After losing their young son to a bomb in Aleppo as the bombings and strife raged on, Afra, known for her unique paintings and artwork was rendered blind: shock, sadness, even the numbing grief of the loss of their child seemed to weigh her down in ways unimagined. But it was not the first inclination of hardships to come. Her husband Nuri, along with his cousin Mustafa were raising and keeping bees in the hills above the city. Harvesting the honey, Nuri and his cousin have a certain affinity for the little creatures: Nuri’s the more instinctual and emotional tie where his cousin’s was more scientific.

But with the war and hardships, and untold dangers, Nuri and his cousin started to stockpile money, passports and other means of escape from Syria – knowing that things would only get worse. In fact, his cousin’s wife and daughter left the country and resettled in England, just waiting for the rest of the family, including Nuri and Afra to join them. But here – the story dives again into deeply disturbing imagery as the search for Mustafa’s young son ends in tragedy and Mustafa makes the perilous journey out of Syria to join his wife and daughter. Throughout the story, Nuri and Mustafa keep ‘in touch’ through email – telling of the dangers, the journey, even the successes as Mustafa finds himself in Yorkshire and is teaching other immigrants about bees and beekeeping.

It is truly Nuri’s story that we are following – the confrontations with ‘police’ and the associated death threats, rivers and abandoned buildings full of bodies – many with hands bound, the outrageous sums of money to ‘leave’ along with the dangers of unscrupulous ‘agents’. Death from drowning, being lost in the shuffle of ‘refugee camps, endless piles of paperwork and Nuri’s own tentative (at times) grasp on reality. From a park in Athens that becomes a hunting ground for the weak and uncertain, to finally arriving at Heathrow and placed in a boarding house while awaiting asylum paperwork the story is gripping, heartbreaking and a lesson to us all about the lengths and breadths people will go to assure a better life for themselves, even leaving behind all that is familiar and known. Lefteri’s prose and story-telling is solid and based on her own experiences in working with refugees, and her own life being effected by fleeing her homeland with her family. Personally I think her own ‘stories’ as a child growing up in a new place helped to infuse this story with an emotional accessibility that speaks to readers throughout the book – as we hope for the best for Nuri and Afra, and wonder of his gentle caressing of the little bee with no wings….perhaps he’s decided that everyone needs a chance.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at <a href=” https://wp.me/p3OmRo-avi/” > <a> I am, Indeed </a>

In my constant attempt to learn about the world through books, this novel is an eye-opening one on the tragedy of Syria over these last eight years. As the world watched the protests devolve into civil war, as the world stood by and watched chemical poisoning and the government bombing their own people, as we all became numb to the terrible loss of life, this book reminds us how so many lives were destroyed. Lefteri tells the story of Nuri, who with his cousin Mustafa, operates an incredible honey business in the fields of Aleppo. Moving back and forth in both time and place, we see the beginnings of this terrible conflicts, as the hives are burned by government soldiers, bombs land in back yards, and dead children become commonplace. It is a story of how normal people, through circumstances beyond their control, flee and become refugees. That word, refugee, seems to have become a curse, a wound upon the society where they enter, a bargaining chip, a way to insult the 'other.' Read this book and you will be reminded what a refugee is...someone fleeing great danger at enormous peril, in such desperation to find a place of safety, to find a home.

A powerful and unforgettable novel by author Christy Lefteri. Rich in culture, tradition, love, and heartache. It educates without feeling preachy or political. Beautifully written and timely, there were so many moments that touched me.


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