Crescent

October 15, 2023 Update: I find it difficult to express myself in an organized and rational way. If you're a regular reader of my reviews, you're probably well aware of that fact. Recently, I've found rational thought to be increasingly difficult. Since October 7th, rational thought has become nigh o......more

This book gets an extra star (its fourth) for telling a story of a fair, blond iraqi-american woman born and bred in L.A., working an Arab kitchen in Tehrangeles. There are few, very few, pieces of fiction of second-generation arabs/persians/muslims in the states. (lots of memoir, yes, - and some cra......more

A forty-year old chef, half American-half Iraqi falls in love with an Iraqi-exiled professor. The book is set in the Arab-American community in Los Angeles, and dances around some very complex family dynamics, love, and Arab culture. I found the book to be very slow at times, but liked the focus on......more

This book's description of Arabs, particularly students and academics, who live in the diaspora is heartbreakingly accurate. Abu-Jaber's descriptions are both intense and palpable. Just as you can taste the mujadara, so too can you feel the homesickness of the characters. Most are suffering from the......more

4.25⭐️ This is an unusual, introspective, quiet, character-driven story that pulls you inside a culture and community and also leaves you thinking about loss and exile and the experience of immigration. Oh, and there is romance. And such evocative, sensuous writing - about food and the LA neighborho......more