“Books, like paper lanterns, provide us with a light amidst the fog.”
Elif Shafak is an author known for never shying away from a sprawling, ambitious plotline that weaves together history, culture, and humanity’s quiet triumphs. Sweeping up immense critical acclaim and numerous awards following its release back in August 2024, There Are Rivers in the Sky is one of these books. Promising an epic tale spanning centuries and continents, this enchanting tale of three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time, is tied together by a single droplet of water. But whilst Shafak’s literary prowess and commitment to research are on full display, does the actual reading experience live up to the hype? Join us today at What We Reading for our There Are Rivers in the Sky book review to find out!
Date Published: 2024
Author: Elif Shafak
Genre: Historical Fiction, Book Club
Pages: 480
Goodreads Rating: 4.33/5
There Are Rivers In The Sky Summary
There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three interconnected lives across time, all bound together by two ancient rivers – the Tigris and the Thames – a single droplet of water.
In 19th-century Victorian London, Arthur – born on the banks of the Thames and into a life of poverty in the slums – possesses a miraculous memory. It’s a talent that leads him to the secrets of ancient Nineveh and the British Museum. In 2014, Nene, a young Yazidi girl living along the mighty Tigris in Iraq, faces the unimaginable terror and devastation of the ISIS genocide. Finally, in 2018 London, Zaleekhah, a recently divorced hydrologist living on a houseboat on the Thames, looks for a fresh start while grappling with her own deep emotional paralysis.
What Worked
Off the bat, Elif Shafak deserves huge praise for the sheer scale and ambition fuelling There Are Rivers in the Sky. Juggling three distinct perspectives across vast historical epochs is no small challenge, but she largely succeeds in cementing us in these timelines. Arthur dominates the majority of the book, and his journey is easily the most compelling storyline as he sets out on a Dickensian ascent from London’s poverty-stricken slums to the sands of the Middle East.
Where Shafak is at her best as an author is in her ability to hand the microphone to marginalised and overlooked communities. The chapters delving into Yazidi culture, heritage, and the awful atrocities committed during the 2014 genocide were truly illuminating and heartbreaking.
Couple these insights with some timely commentaries on eco-anxiety and climate change, our connectivity to nature, and the growing scarcity of water, and you have a novel that addresses some of the most urgent themes of our era.
Finally, from a stylistic point of view, Shafak’s writing is really beautiful at times. She takes a piece of historical fiction brimming with meticulous scientific research and infuses it with lush, lyrical prose that often feels closer to a high fantasy novel than a standard historical fiction read.
What Didn’t
Unfortunately, despite all its lyrical ambition, There Are Rivers in the Sky is an unbelievable slog to get through. With my copy coming in at 480 pages, the pacing is arduously slow for long stretches. When coupled with endless paragraphs of overly dense, description-heavy prose, reading the book often winds up feeling more like homework than a fun, rewarding literary experience.
What surprised me was how, after hundreds of pages of slow setup, the final hundred pages or so romp through at breakneck speed to resolve each of our characters’ fates. These conclusions all rely heavily on a series of wild coincidences and convenient strokes of luck that push well beyond the believable.
The overarching premise – that a single droplet of water witnesses every event across millennia – is a cute theoretical metaphor for human connectivity, but it fails as an active storytelling device. It never makes sense in execution, leaving the core structure hook feeling gimmicky.
Character development also suffers across the board. Despite enduring immense personal tragedies, the narrators all come across as surprisingly bland, lacking strong personalities or meaningful internal growth.
Zaleekhah is the most frustrating example of this: painfully passive and privileged, her sudden shift from severe depression to total personal transformation occurs almost overnight just because she meets her landlord – a tattoo artist (who inexplicably only specialises in Middle Eastern markings) and activist who conveniently double-hats as her ideal romantic partner.
Lastly, while Shafak’s research is admirable, she seems positively hellbent on cramming every single detail into the text. Huge blocks of text, info-dumping everything from cuneiform linguistics, the history of the British Museum and hydrological science, continually hijack the narrative.
The end result is that, rather than enhancing the narrative, There Are Rivers in the Sky feels more a book whose academic tangents steal the spotlight from the characters and emotional sequences, with very little in the way of compelling pay-offs.
Verdict
I fully get that I am probably in the minority with this review. But, try as I might, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a book that I had absolutely no fun with.
It’s a work with a massive heart, noble thematic ambitions, and moments of breathtaking prose. There are scenes and sequences where I felt myself whisked to a faraway land or immersed in the character’s personal tragedies; it’s easy to see why There Are Rivers in the Sky has garnered so much praise: the research and representation are both excellent.
However, under the weight of excessive info-dumps, flat characters and painfully sluggish pacing, the novel soon loses its scope and becomes little more than a trial to finish.
Our Rating: 2/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
