As a palette cleanser before the guilty pleasure trash that I am about to review, let’s review a more serious book. 

I want to preface this by saying that I have heard only good things about Elif Shafak, her advocacy for women’s rights as well as her fiction writings (such as The Island of Missing Trees, which I want to read). I would recommend listening to her Ted Talk.   But this particular book was not my favourite. Since it is not her writing, nor the subject which bothered me, I have narrowed it down to two barriers to my enjoying the book. One: I have personal difficulties with non-fiction as of late Two: I had a lot of trouble figuring out what the purpose of the book was. In fact book is perhaps the wrong word, it’s more like an essay. A collection of quotes, thoughts, and surface-level ideas about identity, and emotions which come with living in an age of constant politically-driven conflict. This might have worked better as a talk actually. None of the ideas were particularly original. I don’t think that’s a requirement, but then I would like the ideas to be considered in depth so that I can learn something. I wrote on the inside cover: “These sentences are food for thought, not thoughts themselves”. I want to demonstrate my softness with my judgement of this book, by contrasting it with Ambre’s review. (Note: she was forced into reading this against her will).