Good Of Kind! But That Margaret Atwood Blurb--Come On!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          Every serious reader has a rough patch, and with now this post, and the one before,  I guess I was in one.  As most of your girls know,  I am a sucker for sagas, so when I picked up "Aria," I thought it would be engrossing.

                                             But the blurb on the cover, by Margaret Atwood,, no less, has got to be a joke!  She says this is "an Iranian 'Doctor Zhivago.' "  The novel has neither the scope, breadth, or poetic lyricism of the Pasternak work.  And this is the second post this year, where I refer to it, so maybe Fate is telling me it is  a time for a reread.  I shall see.

                                               The tile refers to the heroine, who begins as an infant, found by an  Army driver in war torn 1950's Iran.  Her name,  interestingly enough,  is continuously said throughout the novel to  be  a boy's name, not a girl's.  Unusual to me, considering its feminine sound.

                                                 The rest is very conventional--she endures  cruelty,  hardship, and comes  to a point of  empowerment amid  the strife  of Iran.  Yeah,  yeah.  I have read this type of thing before, and while it is readable enough, it leaves no  lasting mark.  This is Nazanine Hozar's first novel,  and  while I admire  the research and detail she has done here to write it,  others before her have been better.

                                                   A debut book, but not a breakout one.  I hold hope that Hozar will come to write one.  I am willing  to give this author another chance.

                                                   But those seeking  a satisfying  saga will be disappointed!

                                                    Skip this one, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!