Book Review: The story of a woman on a quest to find herself

Donia Bijan’s debut novel leads readers through a spectrum of emotions with an incredibly relatable story.
Updated 08 March 2018
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Book Review: The story of a woman on a quest to find herself

Donia Bijan’s debut novel, “Last Days of Café Leila,” is the story of a woman attempting to find herself by rediscovering her family history and her roots: Her native Iran, her parent’s home, and her family’s beloved Café Leila.
Bijan herself left Iran in 1978 and ran a restaurant in Palo Alto, California, for 10 years, so there are clearly some autobiographical touches in the novel.
Run by three-generations of the Yadegar family, Café Leila has stood throughout Iran’s political turmoil and its effects on the country and its people. It is a powerful novel about family, strength, and resilience that sweeps the reader into Tehran and into the lives of the Yadegars from the early 1930s to the present day.
Behzod (Zod) Yadegar, the café’s second-generation owner, is in Tehran waiting for the postman to deliver a letter from his daughter, Noor. But sometimes letters from America can take two or three weeks to arrive.
Meanwhile, Noor, a nurse in San Francisco, has left her husband of 16 years, due to his infidelity, and moved into an apartment with her teenage daughter. Eventually, unable to pull herself out of the hole she has fallen into, Noor writes to her father and asks her if she can come back home.
This is when the story moves to Tehran and Café Leila.
“In a cul-de-sac at the end of Nasrin Street, quiet except at the hour when the kindergartners at Firouzeh Elementary were set free, sat a faded yellow brick building detached from its neighbors. Here, beneath a recessed sign, was Café Leila, its entrance framed in a low-hanging wisteria in full bloom.”
Within the confines of Café Leila, its garden and the now-obsolete Hotel Leila are Zod; 85-year-old Naneh Goli — Zod’s old nanny; waiters Hedayat and Aladdin who “still wore the same faded dark blue jackets with gold-fringed epaulettes, making them look like retired generals;” cousin Soli, who joined the staff after the war; and Karim, a young orphan apprentice who does odd jobs around the complex when not in school. With the exception of Soli and Karim, these are all the people Noor left behind nearly 30 years ago.
Bijan sensitively contrasts Noor’s San Francisco and Zod’s Tehran. In America, there is cautious comfort, a beauty Noor recognizes, but from which she feels disconnected. In Tehran there is a familiarity, a certain sense of calm, despite the troubles and fear of political edicts.
Bijan also contrasts the emotions of mother and daughter. Lily, born and raised in America, is furious about their move. She has never visited Iran and does not speak the language. But Noor realizes her life in San Francisco had left her feeling empty, and finally feels a sense of belonging. “The world changed around Café Leila, but the life that had gone on there since the 1930s continued,” Bijan writes. The café is the glue that holds three generations together.
In every corner of the house, restaurant and garden are bits and pieces of Noor’s life, as well as the lives of her brother Mehrdad, her parents and her Russian expat grandparents who first opened the café. Noor embraces that past as the Café does — a history spanning generations. The small orchard of pomegranate, almond and mulberry planted by Noor’s grandfather Yanik, for instance, “Year after year they blossomed, filling the air with their sweet smell, regardless of political turmoil or the events on the street.” Through Yanik and Nina came a love for Iran and for Persian food that lives on through Zod and Noor.
Bijan’s story is a refreshing take on the immigrant experience — one that is filled with the discovery of culture and of delicious and inventive cuisine.
There is trouble for Noor and Lily in Tehran, in the form of restrictive laws and an ailing, elderly father, but somehow the two women manage to find themselves, or, in Lily’s case, another version of herself she was unaware existed.
“Last Days of Café Leila” is about cherishing the past and reclaiming spaces in both the physical and mental realms. It is about understanding oneself through one’s family and traditions. It is a journey that keeps Noor teetering on a line between her two roles of daughter to a sick father and mother to a defiant teenager.
Bijan writes beautifully of a homecoming, not only in terms of familial ties, but also the sensual experience: the trees, the sounds, the sights, and smells.
Café Leila is not just Noor’s childhood home, it is a place of refuge, healing, and a place of acceptance no matter status or creed.
Bijan leads her readers through a spectrum of emotions with an incredibly relatable story, especially for people who have had to leave their homes for whatever reason. Bijan, through Noor, sums up the story simply and powerfully: “(She) couldn’t do anything to change the conditions, she couldn’t deny her awareness and she couldn’t stand in the way of death or love. The only thing to do was to keep moving, to do something, to show courage, to give everything she was capable of giving.”


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The African Revolution’

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Updated 03 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The African Revolution’

  • The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism

Author: RICHARD REID

Africa’s long 19th century was a time of revolutionary ferment and cultural innovation for the continent’s states, societies, and economies.

Yet the period preceding what became known as “the Scramble for Africa” by European powers in the decades leading up to World War I has long been neglected in favor of a Western narrative of colonial rule.

The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism.

 


What We Are Reading Today: "Beautiful Ugly"

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Updated 03 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: "Beautiful Ugly"

  • Alice Feeney is a New York Times bestselling author. In addition to “Beautiful Ugly,” she has also published “Rock Paper Scissors,” “Sometimes I Lie,” and “His & Hers”

Author: Alice Feeney

“Beautiful Ugly,” released in January, is a novel by British author Alice Feeney.

The story concerns Grady Green, an author, who is on the phone to his wife while she is driving home. During their conversation, he hears the screech of brakes as she spots an object on the road ahead.

Green’s tries to prevent his wife from leaving the car to investigate the object, before she mysteriously disappears.

To cope with his depression and grief, Green travels to an island in search of solace and perhaps a way to restore his life, particularly after losing sleep and his appetite for writing.

On the island, he is shocked to encounter a woman who resembles his missing wife, and the story takes another dramatic turn.

Although the novel has been rated by more than 87,000 users on Goodreads with an average of 3.6 out of 5 stars, some readers found the pace a bit slow.

“It’s a bit of a slow-burn mystery, which I feel is difficult to pull off since it doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time,” one of the reviewers commented.

Despite being a work of fiction, another reader found the narrative unreliable and unrealistic, making it difficult to connect the events. Nevertheless, most readers appreciated the author’s writing style and imagination.

“All in all, I don’t hate the book, but there is too much melodrama and theatrical antics for a thriller. Since this is my favorite genre, I tend to be quite particular about how I like these novels to be constructed,” another reader said.

Alice Feeney is a New York Times bestselling author. In addition to “Beautiful Ugly,” she has also published “Rock Paper Scissors,” “Sometimes I Lie,” and “His & Hers.”

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Shooting an Elephant’

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Updated 02 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Shooting an Elephant’

  • While Orwell’s self-awareness is commendable, some readers may find his portrayal of the Burmese people overly passive, raising questions about perspectives that remain unheard in this narrative

Author: George Orwell

George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” relates his experiences of a police officer in Burma who is called on to shoot an aggressive elephant that has broken free from its handler.

However, the essay — first published in 1936, and thought to be autobiographical — quickly turns into a searing indictment of power’s corrosive grip, with the unruly creature becoming a metaphor for the absurdity of empire.

Orwell sets the stage with quiet tension: the heat, the hostile stares of the Burmese, and the weight of his uniform. He is a man trapped — despised by those he governs, yet bound to the system he serves.

When the elephant rampages through a village, the crowd’s expectation becomes a noose around his neck. Orwell’s prose, stripped of sentiment, lays bare the hollowness of authority. He does not pull the trigger out of duty, but out of fear of appearing weak in the eyes of the villagers.

The essay’s brilliance lies in its ruthless self-exposure. Orwell refuses to cast himself as hero or even victim. Instead, he is complicit, a puppet of imperialism, forced to enact its violence in order to maintain the illusion of control.

Yet, one wonders: Does his introspection absolve him, or merely sharpen the hypocrisy? The dying elephant, gasping for air, is not just an animal, but a truth Orwell cannot escape.

Unlike traditional anti-colonial critiques that focus solely on oppression, “Shooting an Elephant” exposes the trap facing the oppressor.

Orwell’s shame is palpable, his confession unflinching. There is no redemption here, only the sickening realization that power does not liberate, but enslaves.

While Orwell’s self-awareness is commendable, some readers may find his portrayal of the Burmese people overly passive, raising questions about perspectives that remain unheard in this narrative.

The elephant falls, but the real tragedy is that no one — not the crowd, the empire, or even Orwell — walks away clean.

The bullet that kills the elephant also shatters the myth of imperial righteousness. And in that destruction, there is a terrible truth: Tyranny corrupts both the oppressed and the oppressor, leaving both bleeding in the dust.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Republics of Knowledge

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Updated 02 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Republics of Knowledge

Author: Nicola Miller

The rise of nation-states is a hallmark of the modern age, yet we are still untangling how the phenomenon unfolded across the globe. Here, Nicola Miller offers new insights into the process of nation-making through an account of 19th-century Latin America, where, she argues, the identity of nascent republics was molded through previously underappreciated means: the creation and sharing of knowledge.

Drawing evidence from Argentina, Chile, and Peru, Republics of Knowledge traces the histories of these countries from the early 1800s, as they gained independence, to their centennial celebrations in the 20th century.

Miller identifies how public exchange of ideas affected policymaking, the emergence of a collective identity, and more. She finds that instead of defining themselves through language or culture, these new nations united citizens under the promise of widespread access to modern information.

 


What We Are Reading Today: The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting

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Updated 01 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting

  • Focusing on brittle fracture and rock friction, this book will appeal to graduate and research scientists in seismology, physics, geology, geodesy and rock mechanics

Author: Christopher H. Scholz

A massive earthquake hit Myanmar and Thailand recently. Humanitarians are struggling to deliver assistance.

Why do earthquakes happen? “The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting” offers a study on connections between fault and earthquake mechanics, including fault scaling laws, the nature of fault populations, and how these result from the processes of fault growth and interaction.

Focusing on brittle fracture and rock friction, this book will appeal to graduate and research scientists in seismology, physics, geology, geodesy and rock mechanics.