The Forty Rules of Love- Elif Shafak
"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough." The Forty Rules of Love is a captivating and titillating novel that consists of two parallel stories with characters who are struggling with life and love. One story is set in 2008 and the other in thirteenth century during the time when the great poet Rumi met his mentor and companion, The Shams of Tabriz. Ella, a forty year old mother of three, is unfulfilled and unsatisfied with her life. She is constantly questioning her relationships, especially with her husband whom she is unhappily married to. As the desire to change things around her takes a stronghold of Ella, she takes on a job as a reader for a literary agent and her first task is to read Sweet Blasphemy , a novel by Aziz Hazara. Thus begins the other parallel of the book which contains The Forty Rules postulated by the wandering dervish popularly kno