Elif Shafak, through Rumi and Shams of Tabriz and other characters in this book, taught me a thing or two about love. Not necessarily that I didn’t know them, but reading the way she put it, felt like something new. Original. Told by so many characters, main and secondary, the full picture unfolded just as Shams tried to teach everyone: there are many sides of the same story and all are just as valid as the others. It all comes down to how open one is to love. How open one’s soul is to find and spread love around oneself.
I learned a great deal about Sufism, I finally understood that a dervish isn’t a dancer or an entertainer, and I am really curious about Rumi’s poetry.
A five-star read for everything that made me think about and evaluate.