By Christy Lefteri
⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½ (Goodreads: 3.89)
GENRE: Drama
PART OF A SERIES? No
WORTH READING? Yes
SUMMARY:
In a tiny village in Greece, a young girl called Chara lives with her parents, Irini and Tasso. Chara, whose name means ‘joy’, is a very caring and insightful child. On one fateful day, an unthinking man ignites a fire. Due to his selfish actions, people perish, homes are destroyed, and the landscape is changed forever.
Many months later, Irini comes across the man who started the fire. Although he clearly needs help, Irini walks away from him, fuelled by her anger.
Opening lines: 'This morning, I met the man who started the fire. He did something terrible, but then, so did I.'
Irini and her family suffered such a traumatic event that the only way Irini can cope with it is to write it down in a journal. She entitles it ‘The Book of Fire’. It is like a book-within-a-book. Lefteri uses this as the method to tell us what happened when the fire swept through their land. It is very clever how she calls the characters not by their name, but by their label… which manages to further tell the reader how traumatised she is. I.e. She tells the story with characters of herself (‘the mother’), her husband (‘the father’ or ‘her husband’) and her daughter (‘the daughter’). The tale is told from the point of view of Irini. There are also characters like ‘the kind man’ and ‘the old lady’. We don’t find out (nor do we need to) everybody’s name. Alternates between first person current day and an alternate timeline several months earlier. In the very last chapter of this internal book of ‘The Book of Fire’, Lefteri rounds out the tale for us.
I love how Lefteri skilfully weaves references to fire throughout the book. E.g.
“It felt as if all the words in her mind were… turning to ash…” and “…shivered with fire….”
Lefteri is honestly the most beautiful storyteller! She writes such beautiful, descriptive prose. To be honest, I’m often frustrated and completely switch off if an author describes things in too much detail. But that didn’t happen at all for me in The Book of Fire. I found myself absorbing the atmosphere through my skin.
Lefteri really makes you care for her characters and become engrossed in their lives.
If you haven't read this book, I'd highly recommend it, along with The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Songbirds.
Click here if you’d like to buy The Book of Fire
Click here if you’d like to buy The Beekeeper of Aleppo paperback
Click here if you’d like to buy Songbirds paperback
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