Review - Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar
I received this book from my Scribbler subscription box, which is what first brought it to my attention. I am not compensated in any way for my review and all opinions are my own.
Take What You Can Carry is a book about a time and place that I knew virtually nothing about. It is set in the late 1970s in Los Angeles and Iraq. As I was born in the ‘80s, the basis of my knowledge about the Middle East (and Iraq specifically) come from media coverage of conflicts in the region. This book was eye opening and I felt I learned so much from it.
This book started off on the right foot. I loved the first few lines so much that I wrote them down:
She’d seen it clearly: a woman half-over, half-happy with her life. A focused, single snapshot of her future midmark, that moment the hourglass gets flipped. She’d be forty-five years old and play a. mere footnote in her own life: someone’s secretary, someone’s wife, someone’s mother.
This book tells the story of Olivia, an American secretary who dreams of being a photo journalist. Her boyfriend, Delan, is Kurdish. The story centers around the two of them traveling to visit Delan’s family in Iraq. There, Olivia’s eyes are opened to Delan’s past and her own future.
I loved the character development in this novel, not only in Olivia and Delan, but in more minor characters as well. We see the events of the story from Olivia’s point of view and experience her changes firsthand. It is an emotional journey, filled with love and fear and sadness and hope.
I don’t want to give away anything that happens in this book, other than that the political situation is a huge issue for our characters. Events transpire in Iraq that change Olivia forever, in so many ways. This is a book about love and relationships. It’s about being the Other, in small and large ways.
I absolutely loved this book and wholeheartedly recommend it. I already plan to read it again.
