The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali is a masterful piece of life. I don’t even remember what I was expecting before reading this. All I know is that I will never be the same.

This book is so beautifully written and the life contained within these covers is rich and inviting and heartbreaking and sombre. The food sounds mouthwatering and entices me to learn new recipes to get a taste of the wonders housed within the cooking and baking of this corner of the world. The language and phrases unique to their culture are so precious and melodic, my heart-felt desire to read Arabic poetry has never been so strong. The bilingual challenges and adjustment to a new land feel so real, so achingly real, and Roya had me by the heartstrings the whole time she was in America.

One thing I am a sucker for -a huge sucker for – is letters in fiction. Pieces of a character being given to another, containing thoughts and feelings and so much love for them and only for them. Whenever I find out that a book has letters as part of the storytelling I get so excited (that must’ve been the thing that got The Stationery Shop on my radar in the first place) and when I read these ones, well, I don’t think I have recovered. Bahman and Roya are tag teaming me and socking me with every line they write.

Trauma and heartbreak are so masterfully written in this book. The way in which our perception of the world changes with such things was expertly handled by Marjan Kamali and there was such authenticity in every page – the highs and the lows of it felt like it was ripping me in two by the end of the book. And what an end. If I didn’t already have an idea as to what was going on I would’ve sobbed enough buckets to water the garden for weeks.

This book is a must read and a must have on my shelf and if the latter doesn’t come true by the end of the year I might cry more bucketloads – a summer night’s swim for the plants just in time for Christmas.