1979. It's almost too difficult to imagine that answering an ad for a 3rd roommate would lead to a trip to Kurdistan to meet a man's family. However, answering an ad and meeting for a personal interview was the catalyst that prompted Olivia to meet Delan. Taking photographs on the trip could lead Olivia to win a photojournalist position on her employer's Los Angeles newspaper. How often has Olivia wished for love in her personal life and wished to be a photojournalist taking photographs that matter? Do wishes come true?

A story beautifully written, raw yet tender. It is the story of differences – the differences between being in love and living with love. It is the story that photographers tell through their work. Capturing differences between the happiest and cruelest times, a photograph can exhibit an indescribable truth, reveal a secret, capture sheer joy, or spark a memory.

I loved so many lines in the novel that are gripping and thought-provoking. Two of my favorites:

"You love someone because of who they are but also—and maybe more important—despite who they are."
"The camera does not judge, a professor said. It captures. Judgment is what humans place upon the photo."

I encourage every reader not to miss the Acknowledgements as the author shares the inspiration for the novel as inspired by true events. The novel shares Kurdistan's landscape beauty and humanity that I've never seen or read in any news report. I highly recommend this novel.

Discussion Questions are available at the end of the novel. ( )

When I began this novel, what struck me right away was how little I knew about 1979 Kurdistan. I wonder if I even knew Kurdistan was a place or the Kurds a people back then. I imagine my mind would have still been focused on Southeast Asia and the sorrow of coming out of the Vietnam War.

Gian Sardar draws on her own intimate knowledge of the place and the people in writing this novel, which follows the trip of an American girl, who is a photographer, on a visit to the country with her Kurdish boyfriend, ostensibly to attend a family wedding. It is a frightful place to be at this time, and the fright I felt for her and for this family was quite real. You could tell the story was grounded in actual experiences and memories, some of them Gian’s own, and some those of her own Kurdish father and her American mother.

It isn’t a perfect novel. At times it is too slow, and at other times too repetitive in its efforts to impress upon us the danger that is around every corner. There were moments in the book that didn’t feel quite real, or maybe the right word would be genuine. Most of those had to do with the romantic angle. I am not a fan of romance novels, however, so this might have worked perfectly for someone who is. What did work marvelously was Sardar’s connection to the area itself. The descriptions of the terrain and the culture were beautifully written and often fascinating. The Kurdish characters felt very real to me, as did the fear and the sense of foreboding that were present from the moment the couple landed on Iraqi soil. I have one other objection, but it would be impossible to account for it here without a spoiler, and I try very hard never to ruin a book for any future reader, so I will just count that one silently.

The point in selecting this novel was to read something outside my normal reading preferences. This was a different culture, a different genre and a different time period than I usually choose, so it filled the bill. It was a perfectly satisfactory read, and earns a 3.5 star rating, which I rounded down. ( )

I liked this book very much for giving insights into Kurdish culture, Jurdish persecution in Iraq, and the story. I gave it a 4 because the main character, Olivia, was a little over the top introspectively. Those musings could have been shortened. Also, I sometimes didn’t quite understand what the author neBt as I read. However, the story was exciting and seemed very realistic. ( )