The Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak

 

The Forty Rules of Love is an intimate portrait of the life of Ella Rubenstein - almost forty, married with teenage children and a safe and comfortable home. She should, in theory, have all the happiness in the world... But something is missing.

When Ella's job as a book critic leads her to read a manuscript from an unknown author,  A. Z. Zahara, she is feeling despondent and uninspired. But what she finds in the pages, a tale dating back to the thirteenth century of Sufi poet Rumi and dervish Shams of Tabriz, is a lesson in Shams' forty rules of life and love.

Feeling confused and doubtful about her seemingly perfect life, Ella decides to contact the unknown author and the pair begin an intimate correspondence via email. Her family life hanging in the balance, Ella wishes for love, romance, adventure - and Aziz Zahara could be just the person she had been supposed to meet.

This book is full of hope, warmth and wisdom, and provokes self-reflection and wonder. The short chapters flicker the narration from Ella's life in 2008 back to the 1240s, and the relationship between Shams and Rumi. This gives the book a fast-paced quality, leaving you hanging between storylines and eager to know what happens next in each. As always, Shafak's words are so beautiful I just want to eat them for breakfast.

The profundity and romance of The Forty Rules of Love leaves you yearning for more once you have turned the last page, and I would urge any book lover to pick up Elif Shafak's work as soon as possible!