This is such a phenomenal- interesting - page -turning very enjoyable novel. I was drawn into the storytelling instantly....[ I THINK EVERY ONE OF MY FRIENDS WILL BE TOO].....it’s mesmerizing and brilliant. This is also my first book by Elif Shafak. It won’t be the last. I’ve not read another book quite like this one. It’s rich in Turkish/Kirdish culture - yet its literary fiction written in English. I can’t ever remember reading a novel about an honor killing in the Muslim culture. Had Elif Sha...

I am so blown away by this novel, I can't even begin...... The Guardian review saying that Shafak's writing style is similar to Isabel Allende is correct. Shafak like Allende, is able to tell a story from the point of view of many characters without being confusing. However Shafak also has something of Amin Malouf in that she writes about cultural identities. Most of all, Elif Shafak has her own unique style that combines historical fiction,cultural issues, a little bit of spirituality without b...

" if there is no harmony inside that person, he will always be angry " A heart-touching novel about the misleading meaning of honor in the east and some other countries all over the world , honor that concerned only with bodies, women bodies ! This is the story of Pembe and Jamila , Kurdish-Turkish twins and their suffering though life among the retardation ,superstition and injustice .After reading the Bastard of Istanbul i decided to read more for Elif Şafak , she handles important and comp

I am blown away , I am actually at a loss of words.... There are so many thoughts going around in my head about this marvellous book! I just need to let time pass in order to fully grasp everything!Just wow, plain and simple as that! Did I say wow?!Wow!

Honor by Elif Shafak is a tragic story of a shocking honor killing that stuns and shatters the lives and hopes of a Turkish emigrant family living in London in the 1970s.This book opens with a very strong and beautiful dedication from the author which reads as follows; When I was seven years old We lived in a green house, one of our neighbours a talented tailor would often beat his wife. In the evenings we listened to the shouts, the crys the swearing. In the mornings we went on with our live...

A book I read a while ago and which I remembered when I saw an altercation between a couple."Honor" - begins with a murder : a son stabs his mother, for that he suspects her of adultery, and for that he thinks it his duty to defend the honor of the family. It is the last gesture, which explodes the consequences of a set of values, in which men are born for honor, and women - for shame. It is something that happens in traditionalist Muslim communities, including immigrant communities. The story...

Excerpt from the book So it was that in the land where Pink Destiny and Enough Beauty were born, 'honour' was more than a word. It was also a name. You could call your child 'Honour', as long as it was a boy. Men had honour. Old men, middle-aged men, even school boy so young that they still smelled of their mother's milk. Women did not have honour. Instead, they had shame. And, as everyone knew, Shame would be a rather poor name to bear.

More of 3.5 stars. This novel suffers from too much being crammed into it. The theme of honor in Turkish and Kurdish culture, then carried into an immigrant situation, is an interesting one. It got bogged down by confusing timelines, too many characters, weird themes like twins and midwives, etc. I was often lost.I do think the topic of honor killings is important to address, and I wish it had more clarity in these pages. Then I could recommend it as a fictionalized resource, perhaps.

An honor killing in London is not your typical theme for a novel, so the characters radiating out from this event were interesting to get to know. I was drawn in by the twin sisters and enjoyed how it came to light that the sister who found love was left alone. The twin who did marry had reasons other than passion for doing so. Although the chapter headings were very clearly marked with location and date, I think they could have been better shuffled to reveal some key items of interest earlier.

Disclaimer: I read this as an ARC via Netgalley. Thank you, Penguin.Good literature, a good story, stirs something in you besides emotion. This is because we, humans, learn though stories. Whether it is though the fables of Aesop or the narrative that the nightly news uses, stories are an integral part of your life. A good story, or to be more exact, a good presentation of story makes the listener or reader think, to move outside of herself, to move beyond the habit and culture that she knows. A...

I feel mean giving this book such a low rating but while it deals with the difficult subject matter with sensitivity and empathy it just has too many similarities with the two best-known British novels dealing with the immigrant experience: Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Monica Ali's Brick Lane. The divided sisters motif in Brick Lane is reproduced here, and the central Iskander character is uncomfortably close to Smith's Millat - while his brother Yunus is almost a copy of the same novel's Josh,...

Could not put this down, have enjoyed all her books, this one depicts so well life in a Kurdish village, the tough love in being born female, the challenges of immigrants, the difficulty in adapting to different cultural norms and the universal disappointments and often reluctant or guilt-ridden joys of new-found love.

Elif Shafak's novel Honor revolves around the murder of a woman by her 16 year old son. The story moves between Turkey, Kurdistan, England, and UAE. Told in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, it moves back and forth in time until the reader has assembled the whole.The key theme of this novel is gender roles and expectations and how they are shaped by the culture in which one is raised. This novel contrasts England's independent women and more egalitarian society of the late 1970's with that of recent

"To those who hearThose who see Those who can but do not speak!"

This novel was first written in English titled ‘Honor’, then translated into Turkish by Elif Shafak and named after the main protagonist of the novel, ‘Iskender’. His name translates into Alexander in the Western culture. I read the English copy of this novel. Yet, besides the fact that I love the sound of Iskender, I found the title ‘Iskender’ so much more suitable as this Turkish-Kurdish guy who migrated to London as a child with his family is a mind-sticking character with his challenges to i...

Such a deeply moving novel ! I enjoyed every single page of it and I can proudly admit that Im a huge Shafak fan right now.