The Forty Rules of Love

The Forty Rules of Love

  - Elif Shafak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars (2.5 stars rounded up to 3)

I usually tend to avoid books that become a sensation (because they usually lead to shattered expectations), but sometimes I get my hands burned. With not only the members of my reading group raving about it, but also the people on GR and internet in general, going ga-ga over it, it came with a very high expectation. But for me, it turned out to be one of the biggest disappointment of the year (2019 - that's when I read it).

There are two story lines, of Rumi and Shams in the past, and that of Ella and Aziz in present. I liked both the story lines, but I couldn't see the parallel between the two (as had been widely claimed). In fact, they didn't even gel together well. The present day story was not particularly outstanding - a depressed women in a loveless marriage with a rich, philandering husband, giving up everything to find her soul. I found the story of Rumi and Shams the more interesting one, specially because I haven't read anything else about Rumi before this. However celebrated the Rules are, in this book they felt forcefully inserted into the story - most of them go something like this:
... and then Shams said, there is a rule about it .... ""