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103rd out of 175 books
—
185 voters
Gardens of Water
by
Alan Drew
Powerful, emotional, and beautifully written, Alan Drew’s stunning first novel brings to life two unforgettable families–one Kurdish, one American–and the sacrifice and love that bind them together.
In a small town outside Istanbul, Sinan Basioglu, a devout Muslim, and his wife, Nilüfer, are preparing for their nine-year-old son’s coming-of-age ceremony. Their headstrong fi...more
In a small town outside Istanbul, Sinan Basioglu, a devout Muslim, and his wife, Nilüfer, are preparing for their nine-year-old son’s coming-of-age ceremony. Their headstrong fi...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
February 5th 2008
by Random House
(first published January 1st 2008)
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Well, I really liked this book. A lot. (Strange to read some of the other reviews on goodreads, such a variety! The most negative ones seem to focus on the relationship between the two teens in the story but I think the book is about so much more.) It gave me a lot to think about - parental love and duty, cultural blindness, self blindness and the way our personal histories shape our ability to express ourselves and make decisions, etc. Some of the characters made me so angry. I just don't have...more
"Gardens of Water" is a richly detailed, beautifully written emotional journey of the lives of one family and those in their neighborhood after a devastating earthquake rumbles through Turkey. Sinan Bashioglu tries to give his family the best he can no matter how poor he is, but throughout the story he disappoints one family member or another with the choices he makes. His family's apartment building is destroyed in the quake and Sinan has to move them to a tent city until he can afford train ti...more
The novel Gardens of Water, is the first book that was written by Alan Drew, who was born and raised in California and has traveled all around the world. Drew attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has a master of fine arts degree. This book is about a girl, Irem, and her family, living in a small town outside Istanbul. They are Kurdish Muslim and have many strict beliefs. Irem and her family live in an apartment building with a couple other people, including an American family consisting of a...more
If I had only "read" this book, I would probably give it only two stars. But I had the rather different experience of listening to parts of it and reading parts of it. It is the story of a Kurdish Muslim family and its interaction with an American Christian family after an earthquake in Turkey. (The clash of cultures is the rather obvious part of the plot, but how that clash is played out is not as obvious) The reader of the audio version gave such an emotion-filled rendition of each of the char...more
Well, I was 100 pages in and then lost the book for about 3 weeks. I found it under the front seat of my car (where I swear I looked before!) and am about 2/3 of the way through. Interesting story - kind of a Turkish Romeo and Juliet with Kurds and Americans, but the writing is very simplistic. A good book for YA readers.
Interesting to read a book that takes place in Turkey and the writing was fair, but the story felt stuffed into vignettes where the author thought to himself, "ok, now I'm going to explain how a worshipper feels when tourists tromp through their holy building", or "now I'm going to tell why a mother would support the subjugation of their daughter". It felt as if he had mental note cards of situations that he laced together with a plot-line instead of having a compelling plot and finding situatio...more
What happens when cultures collide? Can we ever escape our religious or cultural conditioning? Can we overcome our human frailties even when we wish to do good? I initially felt little sympathy for Sinan - a man bound by his heritage. While his son was feted at his circumcision, his elder daughter was made to cook and serve. Yet as the story unfolds, his genuine (if conflicted) love for his daughter, and his desire to protect his family reveal his inner strength and character. And though we are...more
Honestly, if there were 6 stars, I'd give this book seven! I don't think I've read a more beautifully scripted book — especially a first novel by an author! — than this. Several times during the one evening during which I read it, I'd stop and say to my wife what a wonderful writer this man is. Then I'd read her several pages, a portion of the story.
I picked this up at our local library in my current quest to better understand Islam. This book is told primarily from the viewpoint of a Kurdish, M...more
I picked this up at our local library in my current quest to better understand Islam. This book is told primarily from the viewpoint of a Kurdish, M...more
This was a really lovely, intricate kind of book. The setting was wonderfully portrayed--we as Americans want to think of Turkey in very romantic, exotic terms. Istanbul! Mosques! The gateway between Europe and Asia! We get all of those things, but in a matter-of-fact kind of way; it IS beautiful, but it's also a real place with real people, with a dark side, with complicated politics, with ugliness. The characters were much like that as well--their relationships complicated and fraught with pro...more
The setting of this book is Turkey at the time of the 1999 earthquake. In the book, a Muslim Kurdish family has been displaced and is living in an apartment building below an American family. The teenage daughter of the Muslim has fallen in love with the American boy and is feeling very jealous of her little brother who seems to be the favorite of her parents. The earthquake forces the family to live in a tent city created by American missionaries and the things become very difficult for the fat...more
This was the book selected for the senior book club. I am not sure why. It is the story of a Kurdish Muslim family, Sinan, the father, his wife Nilufer and their daughter Irem and son Ismail. They are from Yesilli, living in a poor working people's town outside of Istanbuhl, exiled from their village by war. They are strict Muslims. Although there are occasional lapses into Irem's point of view, most of the story is seen through the eyes of Sinan. Although the author liked and understood him, I...more
Set in a small town outside Istanbul. Sinan, a devout Kurdish Muslim man and his wife Nilufer prepare for coming-of-age ceremony for Ismail, their 9 year old son. Irem, 15 year old daughter, feeling that she isn't equally loved, resents the attention focused on her brother. All Irem feels she is given is restrictions in the form of the strict rules separating her from boys/men, symbolised in the tight headscarf. Irem finds solace in a secret relationship with neighbour Dylan, 17 year old son of...more
Who knew that the emo-kid revolution spread all the way to Turkey? The worst pat of this novel is that it started out so interestingly cultural. An old Kurdish man and his son preparing for the young boys circumcision, defiantly not something that I ever have experienced. I have to admit that i was drawn in to the foreign rituals and landscapes that Drew describes
What a disappointment! Drew had such a marvelous chance to give american readers and opportunity to look at the Kurdish lifestyle and...more
What a disappointment! Drew had such a marvelous chance to give american readers and opportunity to look at the Kurdish lifestyle and...more
Reality is depressing and tragic in this novel about why Americans (Westerners) and Kurds (Muslims) will never overcome enemy status. I didn't love this book, but it is going to stay with me as a reminder of the clash between Christian and Muslim. Although it is fiction, I'm sure that the author's experience living in Turkey drove the main themes of the book. It seemed a bit presumptuous to me that an American man would attempt to write from not only a Muslim Kurd's point of view, but also from...more
I was quite satisfied with the tension the author creates between Sinan and Marcus. I think the emphasis of the novel is between these characters not Irem and Dylan thing. There are a few predictable problems between Irem and Dylan, but even so I was relieved to see Sinan's struggles as a Muslim, Kurd, father and husband protrayed in a believable but thoughtful way. The book doesn't resolve any of the problems raised. I have noticed this in many novels I have read recently but don't know if it's...more
Four days after arriving in Turkey , author Alan Drew survived the murderous 1999 earthquake. Out of this devastation and rubble, Drew constructs a narrative where individuals struggle with identity, tradition, and clashing religious and political realities.
Sinan Basioglu, a Kurdish club-footed grocer, is the core character around whom and whose family the novel's multiple story lines develop and who is confronted with the shifting ground of the fault lines of Istanbul and morals at the turn of...more
Sinan Basioglu, a Kurdish club-footed grocer, is the core character around whom and whose family the novel's multiple story lines develop and who is confronted with the shifting ground of the fault lines of Istanbul and morals at the turn of...more
My local library was selling some books the other day and I bought this one for just 50 cents. I can honestly say it was so much more than I expected it to be! 4.5 stars, even! The book is chiefly about the illicit relationship between a young Kurdish girl living in Turkey with conservative Kurdish parents and her American boyfriend. The girl naturally falls in love with a tatooed, Radio Head-listening American boy, whose dad is working in a disaster relief program assisting families whose lives...more
For me, this book is a 3.5. A family of Kurdish Muslims living in a small town outside Istanbul becomes entangled, disagreeably, with a family of American Ex-Pat Christian teachers. A deadly earthquake wipes out much of the village in the opening chapters of this book, and everything we know is suddenly upside down. The Muslim father abandons his wife and daughter for four days while searching for his son. When the son is found alive, sheltered in deep rubble by the body of the Christian wife, S...more
I was drawn to this book as it was selected by the Vernon Area Library for an evening book discussion. Also it is a debut novel by this author. The subject matter is one that I had not examined before, a devout Kurdish Muslim family living in a small town outside Istanbul. In the story the family is thrown into total upheaval when a massive earthquake levels the building in which they are living. The Turkish government does not provide timely relief efforts and the family is driven to find aid a...more
Beautifully written, sensitive novel about a Kurdish family living near Istanbul, whose lives are thrown into chaos by the arrival of an American family, and a devastating earthquake shortly thereafter. The Kurdish family has a teenage daughter, who falls in love with the American family's son, and the book deals with the resulting cultural clash.
I really liked the character development in the book. The writer never relies on stereotypes, and even the supporting characters are well-drawn. He doe...more
I really liked the character development in the book. The writer never relies on stereotypes, and even the supporting characters are well-drawn. He doe...more
The novel itself is simply "fine", nothing more and nothing less. What I did enjoy about this book was just how it gave me some of food for thought. (Conflict of man vs. himself , man vs. society) I was dissapointed that this book had only touched the surface of what it could have been, if only parts of the "relationship/romance" of Irem and Dylan were portrayed differently. At times I felt most of their love story was not necessary and did not fit in with the general idea of the book. To me thi...more
9/19/08 - It seems that there has been a flux of popular fiction recently centered on various Middle Eastern countries & their customs. And while I enjoy learning about them for the most part, I feel like I can read only so many of them. Fortunately, this one didn't disappoint me. If you're looking for an uplifting, happy story, this might not be the one for you. Rather, it deals with tragedy on many levels while interweaving two distinct peoples & religions in a very believable storylin...more
I wanted to love this book. It has everything in it that would normally make a book I love: Muslim/Christian relations, a mix of cultures, multigenerational stories, etc. But somehow I just didn't love this book. I liked how the book shows the perspective of several characters (mostly Sinan, the Dad, and Irem, the daughter.... then bits from Dylan, the American boy and Ismail, Irem's brother), but then it really leaves out other perspectives (Irem's mother, Dylan's father). It also touches on th...more
This is a fictional story of two families – one American and one Kurd - trying to survive after the deadly 1999 Marmara earthquake in Turkey. The author attempts to disclose the cultural and religious differences between Christian Americans and Muslim Kurds. As is often the case, the families’ two teenagers are open to accepting each other while the parents struggle with biases. Unfortunately, the relationship between the teens leads to tragedy. The story left me with little hope that the two cu...more
Apr 25, 2009
Jodi
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
everyone
Recommended to Jodi by:
Kirsten from Carlisle Book Club
Wow! I read this book was devoured in one delicious, melancoly sitting while driving to Wisconsin from Pennsylvania! I simply couldn't put it down! The book is set outside Istanbul and is about a Kurdish family and their American neighbors who live above them before the devastating earthquake occurs. The earthquake changes all their lives forever. I felt deep sympathy for the daughter, Irem, because her life seemed so limited by her culture to me and I could see that she yearned to break free. S...more
This book was selected for our city's "One City, One Story" event for 2010, so I picked it up. It reminded me very much of The Kite Runner, in a good way. Both are grim but gripping tales of another culture, and in this case, the story involved a fictionalized version of a real event, at which the author was present. It's hard enough surviving the physical and emotional upheaval of a natural disaster, but what if the aftermath threatens to destroy your entire family?
The book involves cultural di...more
The book involves cultural di...more
In his acknowledgments, he thanks the friend who helped him translate Radiohead lyrics into Turkish. Whatever conclusions you might draw from that are probably wrong. This book is shockingly sad -- impossible love, inescapable cultural boundaries...
Mar 20, 2012
June Seghni
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
modern-fiction,
turkey-iraq-iran-afghanistan
I found the ending of this book very sad,but I still enjoyed it because I came to care about the characters..the Kurdish father struggling to retain his pride and provide for his family in the wake of a devastating earthquake,his long suffering wife, their young son who narrowly escaped death thanks to their American neighbour's wife who perished saving him. And their teenage daughter, finding love and risking everything to be with the neighbours son. This book has several themes..the issue of K...more
Alan Drew’s first novel is a story of two families (one Kurdish and one American), two faiths, and two cultures. The story is set in Istanbul, Turkey and begins four days before a massive earthquake destroys many parts of the City. The story is an excellent modern-day Romeo and Juliet story with good character and story development.
Alan Drew is a 2004 graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and currently lives in Philadelphia where he teaches fiction writing. He has first-hand experience living a...more
Alan Drew is a 2004 graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and currently lives in Philadelphia where he teaches fiction writing. He has first-hand experience living a...more
I read this book because it has been chosen as the Pasadena's 2010 One City, One Story book. I really enjoyed this story of two families and two faiths both living in Turkey. One family who is Kurd and Muslim and the other American and Christian. After a catastrophic earthquake, Sinan and his family are forced to live as refugees while the Americans enlist themselves to help these refugees. Consequently, Sinan's daughter, Irem falls in love with Dylan, the American boy. Their love defies all of...more
1 like · like · see review
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan's Lack of Culture | 1 | 19 | Jul 29, 2009 07:02pm |
Feb 28, 2011 12:54pm