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Loading... Gardens of Water (2008)by Alan Drew
 LDVoorberg | Apr 7, 2013 |  This is an adult book, but two of the main characters are teens, a Muslim girl and an American boy, who develop a relationship during a disastrous earthquake and the difficult time afterwards. A reviewer called it kind of a Turkish Romeo and Juliet with Kurds and Americans- definitely something teens might be interested in reading. It was well written and a fun way to learn about another culture. (  ) GirlsonFire | Mar 25, 2013 | Audio review. Powerful and beautifully written story of two families – one Kurdish, the other American -- and two faiths – Christianity and Islam – set in Istanbul, Turkey where East meets West, just after the devastating earthquake of 1999. The great themes of this novel are loss and betrayal, the collision between an agricultural tribal society with a technological urban society, and the manifestations and curses of faith and ideology – and honor. Drew hasn’t written a small novel but a great one that tackles the major issues warring with each other throughout the Middle East and violently raised by terrorists abroad from their homelands and within them. Besides its literary fineness, it is also an example of the kind of literature that is so worthwhile it should be read by everyone. Heartbreaking to read a story that so well highlights the gulf that exists between the lives and world of those who embrace the 20th C. in contrast to those who cling to a century far back in time. This is a tragic story that illustrates clearly that being simple, honest, moral but blinded by religion and tradition is not better than being worldly, sly, secular and skeptical of monotheism. Sorry, but some ideas are better than others, and some cultures are more civilized – and definitely better – especially if you happen to be born a woman. Islam is not disrespected in this book but it is certainly depicted more unfavorably than in Rabih Alameddine's, "The Hakawati," But that could be the difference between the Islam of the urban Egyptian vs. the Islam of the village Kurd. ( ) Limelite | Dec 21, 2012 | Sinan and his family are left homeless after a massive earthquake hits Turkey. His young son Ismail is initially thought to have died, but is found alive in the rubble. Their neighbors, an American family, were not so lucky, losing Sarah, wife to Marcus and mother of Dylan. Then Marcus and Dylan join an American relief corp running a camp and convince Sinan and family to live in the camp. Dylan and Sinan's daughter Irem become close; their illicit love is a source of family conflict and exacerbates an existing conflict between Sinan and Marcus. Perhaps my tastes have evolved since a friend passed this book on to me. It had some promising elements but on the whole just didn't work. Dylan in particular: having lived all of his 17 years in Turkey, he was still very American (jeans, personal music player, tattoos & piercings) and prone to cultural gaffes. It also struck me as odd that Marcus and Dylan, bereaved and newly homeless themselves, would become relief workers. Wouldn't they need support as much as any Turkish family? Or does their nationality afford them some special status, uniquely able to rise above personal tragedy and help those "less fortunate"? The novel was also very dry, and didn't generate the emotion it should have given a number of tragic plot elements. (  )2  lauralkeet | Sep 9, 2012 | An earthquake in Turkey displaces two families who lived in the same apartment building, connecting them forever at that moment in time, yet creating an unbridgeable distance between them. In a sense, both families were already displaced when the earthquake hit. Sinan Basioglu and his family are Kurds living outside the Kurdish homeland, while Marcus Hamm and his family are Americans affiliated with an American missionary school. The teenage romance between Sinan's daughter, Irem, and Marcus's son, Dylan, is predictably tragic. The Hamm family's effect on Sinan's young son, Ismail, is more surprising. Points of tension include Muslim and Christian, fundamentalist and moderate, East-West/Europe-Asia, American worldview vs. Middle Eastern worldview, parents and children, male and female. This novel illuminates cultural divides without imagining resolutions for them. (  )1 cbl_tn | Sep 3, 2011 | no reviews | add a review
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"In a small town outside Istanbul, Sinan Basioglu, a devout Kurdish Muslim, and his wife, Nilufer, are preparing for their nine-year-old son's coming-of-age ceremony. Their headstrong fifteen-year-old daughter, Irem, resents the attention her brother, Ismail, receives from their parents. For her, there was no such festive observance - only the wrapping of her head in a dark scarf and strict rules that keep her hidden away from boys. But even before the night of the celebration, Irem has started to change. What the dismayed Sinan doesn't know is that much of her transformation is due to her secret relationship with their neighbor Dylan, the seventeen-year-old son of expatriate American teachers." "Irem sees Dylan as the gateway to a new life, one that will free her from the confines of conservative Islam. Yet the young man's presence and Sinan's growing awareness of their relationship affirms Sinan's wish to move his family to the safety of his old village, a place where his children would be sheltered from the cosmopolitan temptations of Istanbul, and where as the civil war in the south wanes, he hopes to raise his children in the Kurdish tradition." "But after a massive earthquake, the Basioglu family is faced with greater challenges. Losing everything, they are forced to forage for themselves, living as refugees in their own country. And their survival now depends on their American neighbors, to whom they are unnervingly indebted. As love develops between Irem and Dylan, Sinan makes a series of increasingly dangerous decisions that push him toward a betrayal that will change everyone's lives forever."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)
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Wikipedia in English
The book reminds people of the unseen reprecussions evangelism can have, but also highlights what hardships befall a town devasted by a natural disaster. This is a complex novel, because family dynamics also play a huge role in the story and the characters' interactions. There's a lot here to digest. A great story. (