Three Daughters of Eve

This was a really quick read, pa=][/l[.lp[l'.[]
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tly= \                       (thanks for the contribution Little One!)

partly because the Little One occasionally let me read whilst she entertained herself, but also because the short chapters meant that I could pick it up, read for ten minutes and then put it down again.  That's not to say that it is badly written, not at all. I really enjoyed this and wanted to finish it as quickly as I could because I was gripped and wanted to find out what happened to the characters. I think that this is the best of Elif Shafak's books that I have read so far.

The story mainly follows Peri, a Turkish woman who in 2016 is traveling to a posh dinner party in Istanbul with her daughter. Whilst sitting in a traffic jam (a common occurrence in Istanbul) her handbag is pinched by a homeless man, and in the chase that ensues a photo falls out of her handbag. It shows Peri in Oxford in the early 2000s with two other women, Shirin and Mona, and their professor. The book jumps from the 1980s, exploring Peri's childhood in Istanbul (ironically her timeline kind of follows mine, which may explain a lot about why I like the book so much), the 2000s when she starts university and the current day. Throughout the novel is a discussion of philosophy and spirituality. It explores her mothers conversion to religion and the decision to wear a headscarf, in contrast to her father, a staunch nationalist and muslim by culture and birth rather than practise. Peri is stuck in the middle, trying to work out what she believes. In Oxford she joins a class on God where her views are challenged by an outgoing professor with unconventional teaching methods, and the two women in the picture, fellow students Shirin, the make up loving, short skirt wearing Muslim by culture only and Mona, a woman of faith who chose to wear the headscarf. It is an exploration of Turkey, a State of nationalism which is becoming more religious, an exploration of being a woman in a Muslim environment and being a Muslim in a secular or Christian environment.