I love elif Shafak’s writing but I found this novel jumped around just a little too much for me to follow.

I love Elif Shafak's writing and I was thrilled to be able to read an ARC of this book. This one was maybe. more ambitious than her past novels in terms of the multiple storylines from different timelines and places. I loved that about this. I loved the anticipation of waiting to see how the stories connect, and the hints of things that connected each of those characters. I love the way history and literature and the way groups of people were treated historically binds binds this novel together. This is a wonderful book.

Three protagonists linked by two rivers, the water cycle and a lost culture make for an intriguing yet complex narrative structure. Shafak challenges her readers to contemplate how water, a tiny but vital molecule, travels through time and space without regard for human endeavors. Along the way, she links water to larger issues like racism (class and ethnic cleansing), memory (lost ancient Middle Eastern artifacts and literature), and climate change (hidden and polluted urban rivers and the cultural impact of damming to contend with desertification).

King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums is a 19th century boy born into poverty beside a polluted Thames River. He is named by the people who made their living retrieving artifacts discarded into the river. This occupation foreshadows Arthur’s future because, not unlike the Dickens characters he resembles, he has “great expectations.” He is a brilliant introvert who rises from grinding poverty to discover a calling excavating and translating cuneiform tablet shards from the destroyed city if Nineveh. Recovering an ancient poem— “Epic of Gilgamesh”— becomes his fatal obsession. That text was lost when the Mesopotamian library of King Ashurbanipal was flooded.

The second story is about a Yazidi girl named Narin. In some respects, this is the opaquest of the three stories. The traditions, history, and homelands of this obscure Kurdish sect are central to this story, yet it leaves much detail out. It is understandable that this long book required some editing, but it is unfortunate to have to resort to Google to follow it. Simply put, Narin’s mother is dead, and her father is away a lot as a travelling musician. Her religious grandmother is her primary caregiver. Narin is suffering from progressive deafness and her grandmother is intent of getting her baptized on sacred ground. Dam building on the Tigris leads to the flooding of their homeland. This necessitates travel to a distant sacred site that is hostile to the Yazidi people. This results in unfortunate consequences for Narin and her family.

Zaleekhah is a young hydrological scientist renting a houseboat on the newly restored Thames. Suffering from depression because of the breakup of her marriage, she develops a romantic relationship with her female landlord, who is a tattoo artist working in cuneiform decorations. This coincidence seems to be a stretch to link the three stories. In another case of heavy-handed foreshadowing, one also learns that Zaleekhah’s parents died in an Egyptian flash flood. She was raised in luxury by a loving, but meddling uncle. Her niece requires a kidney transplant— reminiscent of Narin’s deafness—an event that leads to dire consequences for her relationship with her uncle.

Shafak merges these three plots in a satisfying, yet unsurprising conclusion. Notwithstanding a few places where she may have hammered the puzzle pieces to make the stories fit better, this is a well-researched and engaging piece of historical fiction filled with obscure facts and a cast of realistic, nuanced characters.

I have tried to read this book through for the past month. I can’t physically make myself read anymore of it. I’m 160 pages/30% through and I couldn’t tell you what this book is about. There is no plot or stakes. The only vague connections I have is that the rivers are maybe important? Every so often there were moments where I thought “oh nice, it’s finally picking up. Maybe this is the start of something!” And every time it led nowhere and meant nothing. I don’t even know how to write a review other than I’m relieved to have finally decided to dnf this.

This was a beautiful story about how we are all connected in our shared humanity. The story is woven together by the travels of a single drop of water throughout the water cycle over thousands of years, focusing on the people this drop of water touches over time. From an ancient king, to a British academic, to a girl and a woman in more modern times, the life stories of these people is told. While it is a work of fiction, I think fiction can tell us truths about the world. The heartbreak of what happened to the Yazidi people is something you don’t see often in fiction, and I think it is so important that people be made aware of it. This book was lovely, bittersweet, and showed how we all seek connection in our lives.

Water connects everyone and everything on Earth through time. Each of the three protagonists are connected by a single raindrop that travels through history and imbues the narratives with an omniscient commentator. Shafak does a masterful job of bringing together times and places with the common threads of The Epic of Gilgamesh, cholera, death and life by water, the history of the Yazidi (including the atrocities committed against them), ISIS’s reign of terror in Iraq, and grappling with the pillaging of antiquities. Through the shifting perspectives and times, she shows the way our understanding of various actions and events has evolved (or not) and how we choose (or have chosen for us) what we face in both history and current events. While the characters endure a lot of trauma, it is important for the reader to bear witness and learn about the real world events that the characters witness and experience. The book brings past to present and forces the reader to ask and answer hard questions. Additionally, the writing is so gorgeous, engulfing you like the water that runs throughout.

I very much enjoyed two previous Elif Shafak novels (10 MInutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World and The Island of Missing Trees) so I was eager to read an ARC copy of her forthcoming novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, to be published in late August 2024.

While there are certainly positives, this latest novel doesn’t quite work for me as well as the others I have read. The writing is lovely and there are many beautiful passages, the setting and history of Mesopotamia is fascinating, and the story’s connection to water is unique and laudable. However, the story structure is rather clunky and serves to hold the reader at a distance throughout. Three main characters (in very different times/places) trade narration through the novel, which could work well but Shafak has chosen to use a round-robin approach to their narration, with short chapters. It is difficult to connect with the characters or their unique storylines with such choppy story segments. There is also just too much exposition, and the flow of the story suffers. The characters' backstories and the historical background feel like barriers, making the novel tedious to read. And that is really a shame. The story has such potential, but the structure gets in the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 20, 2024.

4.5. What an amazing story and journey, following a drop of water through the centuries, from biblical times, to the 1840s, to the present, starting in Mesopotamia, Nineveh, England, Turkey, and Iraq. I love historical fiction as I often learn about times in history or events that I don’t really know a lot about. That is definitely true of this novel. A very creative novel that follows the story of three characters, King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums in the mid nineteenth century, in London; Narin, a Yazidi girl in Turkey and Iraq in 2014; and Zaleekah, a hyrdrologist in London in 2018 with middle eastern roots. The Tigris in Mesopotamia and the Thames tie these characters together to weave a beautiful, yet heartwrenching story of each of their individual journeys—poverty, starvation, ethnic cleansing, the plunder of middle eastern artifacts—with water as the backbone of all cultures and the impact on their lives and ultimately on the future of the world. The novel also touches on many historical moments, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the destruction of Nineveh, the centuries long struggles of the Yazidis, and climate change. It is hard to describe all the events and people in this novel as there are so many, but that is what I found most captivating, and in my view, Ms Shafak did it so well as not to be confusing. The characters are so well defined. Very well researched. .Ms. Shafak constructed a very engaging novel. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and honest review.

The author uses the Thames, the Tigris and a drop of water traveling through space and time to create a strong connection among the characters. The book opens with the destruction, by flood, of the library of King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, burying or washing away the greatest follow books and artifacts. Arthur was born into poverty in the time of Dickens, along the Thames as her mother was mud digging for scraps to sell. Narin, a ten-year old in 2014, has her Yazidi Baptism beside the Tigris thwarted by developers seeking to destroy the religious group. Zaleekah, a thirty something hydrologist, living on the Thames, orphaned and brought to London, never felt she belonged. Water itself becomes a character.

The other main connections are the culture of Mesopotamia, the appropriation of artifacts, the importance of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the ethnic cleansing of a people. Arthur suffered starvation, poverty and abuse. Due to his brilliant memory and mind he got work sweeping out a publishing house where he read everything he could. Passing the British Museum he watched the delivery of massive lamassa statues. This began his love of anything Nineveh. He was the first to translate a cuneiform stone with a piece of the epic poem. Narin sat by her Yazidi grandmother and learned of her ancestors who served as diviners while in Turkey and then Iraq awaiting her baptism. Zaleekah’s friend, a tattooist, specialized in cuneiform.

Each person’s life story could stand on its own; but like the Epic, it needs to be handed down from generation to generation. There needs to be a remembering, unlike water that ebbs and flows without end. I learned a great deal and enjoyed the book, I was not as invested in Zaleekah and her story.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for this advance copy.

Elif Shafak’s There Are Rivers in the Sky follows a single raindrop in its course from its fall onto King Ashurbanipal’s beard in ancient Nineveh to 1840s London to present-day Iraq and London. The action flows between times and between the great rivers Tigris and Thames. Water fills the consciousness of the characters, from mudlarks on the Thames to Yazidi people forced to migrate from the Tigris to wealthy Iraqi transplants living along the Thames: the language is positively humid. And behind it all lies our oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh—collected in the library of Ashurbanipal, searched for by London scholars, collected again by antiquities collectors. Its tale of great human adventure, deep friendship, and deepest grief in the loss of a loved one still and always resonates. Shafak doesn’t retell the epic, but her characters live it.

This book grabbed me from its opening tale of Ashurbanipal’s contending love of his books and easy cruelty to his subjects. It’s often painful, especially as we see the cruelty continuing from Nineveh to London to Iraq to London again. But the water connects beauty and love as well, and the trip is worth the pain. There Are Rivers in the Sky left me grieving and rejoicing at once. You can’t ask for much more from a book.

Thank you, #Knopf, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
#ThereAreRiversintheSky #NetGalley

“Water remembers, it is humans who forget.”
Thank you NetGalley for the eARC!
This book was so interesting! It follows three different characters in completely different places. We have King Arthur, Narin, and Zaleekah. They’re all connected, because of course they are, but in the most surprising way! Of all things, it’s water that connects these three characters. Water remembers, after all.
I won’t spoil more of the plot!! This book was beautifully written truly lyrical and poetic, I adored the writing style and I thought the multiple plots were handled very well. It’s easy to get lost with multiple characters, but the author did a great job of balancing them without making the reader confused or letting urge characters blend together. The story itself is beautiful and intriguing.
I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it!

"There Are Rivers in the Sky" reads like an E.L. Doctorow novel. The author puts fictional characters alongside historical figures.

First up is Ashurbanipal, King of Mesopotamia in the 640s BCE. His favorite work in his library is a poem he knows by heart, The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Then comes Arthur Smyth, amended from George Smith, who first translated the Epic from tablets held at the British Museum in the 1870s.

Two modern day women round out the story. Narin is a 9-year old member of the persecuted Yazidi religion. Zaleekhah is an hydrologist who lives in London but traces her roots to Mesopotamia.

All feel the pull of water.

Elif Shafak has written another beautiful engrossing novel. I loved the characters the story a novel I will not forget and will be recommending.@netgalley @knopf

First of all, thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the eARC of There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. The biggest positives of the novel are its magnificent worldbuilding and its brilliant characters. The novel encompasses three characters across centuries and wraps them up in an engrossing plot surrounding water, family, and traditions. I loved all three of the characters, Narin, Arthur, and Zaleekhah, whose lives you could fully envlop thanks to the words on the page. However, Arthur's story in particular was incredible and raised profound questions that lingered far after the soul-stirring climax. If you love historical fiction, this novel is an absolute must!

This book was absolutely beautiful and heartfelt,and at times harsh and sad. Elif shafak is an extraordinary author and I will read anything by them. Just a wonderful story

"When we are gone--kings, slaves, or scribes--what is left of us?"

Elif Shafak brings together the stories of three characters, two rivers, and a wide expanse of time into one story, which is the story of water. There Are Rivers in the Sky is another tour de force by Elif Shafak capturing the heart of humanity, the complexity of trauma and oppression, the beauty and breaking of history, and the hope that should propel us to work for the freeing of land and people.

"How does a people survive the painful realization that not only is their history full of oppression, persecution and massacres, but their future may also offer more of the same?"

Shafak challenges the reader to confront the experience of a marginalized people and what the pursuit of wealth and power can give and take away. While it takes some time to see the different pieces of the story coming together, it is worth every page. This is the kind of book that upon finishing it, leaves you awestruck and frozen for a minute. It is a feeling of, "Whoa. What do I even do now?" It is brilliant, unsettling, and an essential read. It is timely and thought-provoking.

"Those you love are your sanctuary, your shelter, your country and even, when it comes to that, your exile. Wherever they go, you will follow."

To anyone and everyone, I recommend this book. I am not one who typically likes books about ancient history or antiquities but this book made those things come alive for me. The journey with the characters and through a beautifully described geography made every page worth it.

Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in my review are my own.

This was an ambitious, well-written, and moving work, I'm glad I stumbled upon it. I found it to be very reminiscent of Cloud Cuckoo Land, with there being multiple POVs across time and space tied together by one central narrative. I even enjoyed each POV, which is pretty rare for me, there is usually one I'm less excited about. Arthur, Zaleekhah, and Narin each brought unique perspectives and story telling. Beyond just the main plot, which was very compelling on its own, I also learned a lot about Mesopotamia and 1800s London - a pleasant bonus!

I can't express how much I LOVED this book! I am in awe! One of the best books I have ever read. I can't say enough good things about this story. This will be a book that I will talk about forever!

Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky is a triumph. I am a somewhat new reader of Shafak's novels, having only read The Island of Missing Trees (also a stunning novel), but this new book has made me a fan that will be adding her earlier works to my summer reading list.

There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three characters -- Arthur, Zaleekhah, and Narin -- through time and space, and provides the reader with not only a beautiful interconnected story, but a history lesson on Mesopotamia, nineteenth century London, and the atrocities Isis inflicts on whole communities.

This is a must-read book, and I'll be recommending it to book groups when it is released.

This novel follows three characters in three different timelines: Arthur, born into poverty in Dickens's London; Narin, a Yazidi girl living in Turkey with her father and grandmother in 2014; and Zaleekhah, a water scientist recently separated from her husband in London in 2018. These three seem entirely unrelated, but their lives all find a connection in water and in the culture of ancient Mesopotamia. Arthur finds success in being able to read cuneiform tablets unearthed by archaeologists and finds his life's passion in translating the epic poem of Gilgamesh. Narin, whose mother died and whose father travels for work, suffers from an illness that is rapidly taking her hearing, and as the Turkish government is planning construction that threatens to flood the village where she lives, her grandmother is determined to take her to an ancient holy city in Iraq to be baptized. Zaleekhah is trying to make a home on a rented houseboat and reflecting on the work of her late mentor, whose theory that water could retain memory destroyed his professional reputation, and of the rivers that have been buried over the centuries. Connecting these three storylines are the themes of memory, of hatred that arises from misunderstanding, and of the many important roles that water plays in life as well as the dual nature of all humans -- that even those who create beauty or knowledge are still capable of cruelty. I really enjoyed this book, though I found the characters to be a little flat and underdeveloped and would have liked to have gotten to know them better. I gave it 4 stars.

I received a digital ARC of this book from Knopf and NetGalley in return for an honest review. This book will be published August 20, 2024.