What readers think of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, plus links to write your own review.

Our little book club LOVED this book! Even made lavender honey for gifts to members!

Heartwarming, well written, and all felt saddened when book completed!
We felt this one of his finest works!

From the minute I opened this book until 5 hours later...couldn't put it down! Story line, characters, setting all brought me there as a bystander...tearing at my heart for the real life suffering happening. Hands down one of my all time favorite books! Picked this one for our first BookClub read! LOVED it!

This is a beautifully written story about the plight of Syrian refugees. It sheds light on the depths of human suffering and the strength of the human spirit.

This book will haunt me for years. Every time a 'conflict' is on the news, the discussion only involves the soldiers. But what about the people who aren't involved in the fighting? The ones who were just living their life and now can't? The ones who no longer have a home, family, livelihood? And, yet, they also have no place to go, to try to find normalcy...whatever that can be after such horrendous events. I will never understand this need to cause a war with no plan for those who just want to have their life. Thank you Christy Leftri for the heart wrenching novel.

A little hard to get into, but once in it, I found it hard to put down. I also want to know what it next, always the sign of a good book.

This is perhaps the most poignant book I have read thus far this year. Yet the book is filled with beauty and love.

Nuri is a beekeeper in Aleppo, Syria. His wife Afra is an artist. Amidst the Syrian Civil War Afra was left blind when she witnessed their young son killed by a bomb. Their nephew Mustafa fled Syria earlier and is now in England. Mustafa has bought some beehives and started his own business. He begs Nuri and Afra to join him, thus they set off, joining thousands of other refugees fleeing to what they hope is a better life, a safer life. It is a long and danger-filled trek to and through Turkey and then through Greece with no guarantee they will be granted asylum if and when they reach England.

Theirs is a journey of moving through their grief and rediscovering themselves, individually and as a couple. Along the way they meet people who will take advantage of them, some who will hurt them, and some who will give them the strength to continue their journey.

The author worked as a volunteer at a refugee center in Athens, Greece. The stories she heard and the people she met led her to writing this compassionate account of their stories.

Thank you so much to Random House Ballantine and Netgalley for the advance reader copy of this book. Wow. What a novel. It’s definitely given me a book hangover because I know the next thing I pick up will not compare. I have read a number of refugee novels over the past few years. None of them grabbed me and moved me like this. I feel like my eyes have been opened and I have an entirely different level of empathy and understanding (as much understanding as one can have sitting in my comfy couch in my middle class American life). The writing and descriptions are beautiful done, so vivid I could see everything. This is ironic based on the author’s stated goal of the book, explained in an afterword. I would give this all the stars x 10. Please read this book.