“Suspenseful…emotionally compelling. I found myself eagerly following in a way I hadn’t remembered for a long time, impatient for the next twist and turn of the story.”—NPR
An Afghan American woman returns to Kabul to learn the truth about her family and the tragedy that destroyed their lives in this brilliant and compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, … the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, The House Without Windows, and When the Moon Is Low.
Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan’s thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of remarkable promise under the leadership of people like Sardar Daoud, Afghanistan’s progressive president, and Sitara’s beloved father, his right-hand man. But the ten-year-old Sitara’s world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s entire family. Only she survives.
Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name—Aryana Shepherd—and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. A survivor, Aryana has refused to look back, choosing instead to bury the trauma and devastating loss she endured.
New York, 2008: Thirty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana’s world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room—a man she never expected to see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family. Seeing him awakens Aryana’s fury and desire for answers—and, perhaps, revenge. Realizing that she cannot go on without finding the truth, Aryana embarks on a quest that takes her back to Kabul—a battleground between the corrupt government and the fundamentalist Taliban—and through shadowy memories of the world she loved and lost.
Bold, illuminating, heartbreaking, yet hopeful, Sparks Like Stars is a story of home—of America and Afghanistan, tragedy and survival, reinvention and remembrance, told in Nadia Hashimi’s singular voice.
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Sparks Like Stars focused on the late 1970s & current day Afghanistan. I have very little knowledge of that countries past, so I enjoyed experiencing it through Sitara’s eyes. I easily got lost in the story and in Sitara’s character. There were a few areas in the book that I would have loved the author expand in to add more depth to the overall story but it flowed nicely and kept me engaged.
I highly recommend listening to this one on audiobook if you can. There are quite a few Dari words sprinkled throughout the pages and I loved listening to them come alive as they’re suppose to be pronounced.
This book was incredible. It follows a young girl from an affluent family in Afghanistan after her whole family is killed and she miraculously survives. It is beautiful and heartbreaking.
I have been on an emotional roller coaster this past week. First, this is my first book that I have read by Nadia Hashimi. It will not be my last. So many emotions. In the beginning, the enchantment of an entitled childhood of Sitara who is the ten-year-old daughter of the top advisor to thePresident of Afghanistan’. The family often stays at the palace. The President’s granddaughter is SItara’s special friend. The girls have the freedom to roam the palace and live an enchanted childhood. This ends abruptly in 1978 when there is a coup and a bloody massacre. It seems that Sitara is the sole survivor. She hides and is discovered by a palace guard she has known. After staying with his family for a couple of days, he drops her off at the home of an American diplomat. They get her to America. Soon, the book moves forward in time to 2008. Aryana (Sitara) is now a doctor and runs into a patient from Afghanistan. So many memories are stirred, and she needs to return to Afghanistan to find answers. This book is so emotional. At times, I felt like I was watching a movie. I know this book will live in my heart for a long time. I look forward to reading other books by Hashimi. My thanks to William Morris and Custom House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.
Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi is a very modern day piece of fiction that has its roots deep in Afghanistan in 1978 before and during the coup that started many of the tragedies which have happened there since. A small child named Sitara, with the courage of a lion, is helped to escape a massacre by one of the turncoat soldiers who perpetuated it. She has carried hatred in her heart for years for his part in the murders, never giving him credit for saving her. He took her to the small apartment of a young woman who worked at the American Embassy, and her mother, a hippie of sorts who was dying of cancer, helped smuggle her out of her country and to the United States. She collapses on the plane and is taken to a hospital, and Sitara, now known as Aryana, based on a stolen birth certificate, go to foster care, where she stays, thankfully, only for a few days until the embassy employee who is to become her mother, rescues her and eventually saves the other two children from their nightmare as well. Aryana grows up to be a cancer surgeon and one day treats the soldier who had killed her parents and recued her. He couldn’t tell her much, but it turns out he told her all she needed to know.
Grief runs deep as does not knowing. Aryana always had a hole in her heart that could not be filled, not matter how good her life had become. Her adopted mother knew and understood. She may not have handled it as well as she should have, but she did as well as she could. Aryana returning to Afghanistan to hunt for the truth tore her apart, but mended her in ways it is difficult to understand. Sparks Like Stars is a moving piece that puts the reader smack dab into the middle of the life of another, which is one of the many reasons to read. Reading books like this create understandings that can come from no other place. People with other experiences enhance the lives of people that read about them, as this did. It was a stunning portrayal of a couple of weeks of life that no one should have to live, let alone a child. It was a remarkable story of love and healing. I thoroughly recommend it.
I was invited to read a free ARC of Sparks Like Stars by Netgalley. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #netgalley #sparkslikestars
As I finished the last paragraph of this book, I sighed. I did not want to leave Hashimi’s world. She has the expertise to juxtaposition the horrors of war alongside the gentleness of the Afghan people and leave the reader yearning to provide comfort to those beautiful people.
Sitara Zamani returns to Kabul after decades away. She is determined to find the bodies of her family who were killed in 1978 in a bloody coup. She believes she was the single survivor of that tragic night.
Sitara was smuggled from the palace that night and left at the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. Taking on a new name —Aryana Shepherd—she studies hard and eventually becomes a surgeon. She has buried her trauma and grief, refusing to deal with it. Until someone from her past becomes her patient. Now those feelings bubble to the surface, refusing to be pushed down. She knows she must return to Kabul.
An emotional read – I smiled at the childhood scenes of Sitara and her loving family; I felt 10-year-old Sitara’s terror as she quivered in her hiding place, hearing her family assassinated. While this is a story of heartbreak and tragedy, it is also a story of love. The relationship between Aryana and her adoptive mother is truly beautiful.
Perfect for book clubs. So many threads that can be discussed.
Inspired by historical events, this novel transported me to 1978 Afghanistan alongside 10-year-old Sitara whose life is pretty wonderful. She loves her parents, younger brother, extended family, and close friends. Her father’s position as advisor to Afghan President Daoud Khan provides a privileged life. In an instant, everything changes when the president, his family, and Sitara’s family are murdered as the first victims of a coup. Smuggled out of the palace by an unlikely source, Sitara is delivered to an American diplomat who adopts and raises her in the US and around the world.
Then the storyline abruptly shifts to 2008 where Sitara is a successful oncologist in New York City. She is jolted from her routine when her significant other pursues a new career path and a patient with shocking connections to her past appears in her clinic. These events lead her to revisit her past in search of closure and healing.
The book has some lovely turns of phrase that caught my breath and had me rewinding to replay and consider them. However, the novel felt disjointed, more like two interconnected novellas with a very strange interlude about a bad foster care situation. Given the amount of history in the novel, I likely would’ve abandoned a print copy so I’m grateful I could listen to the audiobook. Mozhan Marno as narrator was excellent, and her voice was familiar to me from The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali.
I’m grateful I had the opportunity to experience a segment of Afghan history through well-researched fiction. Thank you to Book Club Girl/William Morris for the gifted egalley and audiobook.
10 stars, if I could.
This is the best book I’ve read in quite a while. It grabbed my attention from page one and held it all through the book. The characters, the situations, and the way everything develops; it all works so well together. In fact, it makes me want to go back and change the ratings on other books I’ve read and reviewed, to lower them so that this book stands higher above them as it deserves. The writing was spectacularly well done, and it’s the first book that’s made me cry in a long time..
Sitara is a young girl in Afghanistan. Her father works with the country’s president, and Sitara thinks of President Daoud as her uncle. Life is wonderful as she and Neelab, Daoud’s daughter, play innocently on the palace grounds. She’s a happy, intelligent, inquisitive child. All is wonderful until one night when the palace is attacked. Sitara avoids the worst of the is rescued by one of the attackers, a former guard. He takes her to his apartment, where he holds her as prisoner. Then, one day, he takes her and drops her with an American woman. Sitara is wary of this woman and her mother, but little by little, they win her trust. We get to follow Sitara for the next 30 years, and it’s one heck of a trip.
The uprising at the palace isn’t the only one this young girl faces. It seems, at times, as if death follows her. And that’s not all. She lives her life always feeling hunted in one way or another, and a part of her always feels empty. However, in many ways she’s incredibly lucky.
I highly recommend this book. It was riveting and satisfying, had me on the edge of my seat, and rooting for Sitara. In the end, it left me feeling hopeful and rewarded for my reading efforts.
I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. I thank them for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.
My mind is reeling, full of thoughts on how can I possibly review a book of this epic scope and do it justice? The answer is I can’t. But, I will try.
This masterpiece, based off true events of the 1978 coup in Afghanistan, centers around the daughter of an Afghan Presidential Advisor. At age 10, she witnesses the murder of her entire family during the attack on the Presidential Palace. This novel chronicles the life of that child – Sitara Zamani, her transition into becoming Aryana Shephard, and her search for closure.
Haunting, stunning and a truly incredible story. Nadia Hashimi’s dual timeline storytelling is so brilliant, that had I not known otherwise, I would’ve thought this was an autobiography.
The writing flows beautifully – the history, the landscape, the emotional and physical journey – it all comes together in an extraordinary saga that spans decades and countries. I was so completely swept into this book that I read for hours, losing track of everything around me.
Heartbreaking, thought provoking and absolutely riveting, Sitara’s story will linger long after you read the final page.
*Thank you William Morrow Marketing, Nadia Hashimi and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This was a heartbreaking book that spans decades. As a young child in Kabul, Sitara life is turned upside down when her entire family is murdered Sitara is helped by palace guard and is adopted by an American diplomat. Years later as she is a surgeon, Sitara sees a patient and it is the palace guard who saved her. She vows to find out all the answers to what happened to her family. It was an emotional book from beginning to the very end I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.
This was a very wonderful story, I really fell in love with this book, with the characters and the stories they went through.
Sparks Like Stars, it’s the story of an Afghan Woman that started when she was just a child, (1978)
when everything happened, she was present at that terrible event that changed her life forever, and even the entire country, she lost all hope, she felt terrified to realize that she was now all alone, completely at the mercy of people who only wanted power and to destroy a beautiful country that has never been the same.
Sitara Zamani was the daughter of a prominent family she was very happy and enjoying her life like any other child but everything was stolen from her, her house, her childhood even her own family. After many years of that terrible event (2018), Sitara has never been the same, She started a new life in a new country with a new name (Aryana Shepherd) so she could survive. she hasn’t been able to find a closer or even a happy life, she wants to find her family, she wants to make things right for them and for herself even if that means returning to the one place that started all.
What a brilliant and magnificent book, I spend many times crying for Sitara, she really didn’t deserve so many things that happened to her and to her family, I love that she found a mother a woman who took her under her wing and made her into a magnificent woman. Reading Sparks Like Stars not only opened my eyes to many things I didn’t know about Afghanistan but somehow remind me of stuff that I heard before but never really understanding. Until the Outsiders come with their crazy ideas changing the laws and implementing things that were not kind at all for many of the citizens and the country.
My favorite characters definitely Antonia and Tilly both women really brought so much joy to Sitara’s life, they were her saviors and the only two people that risked everything they had to save a child who was all alone in the world. Antonia was a magnificent woman I really love how strong she was and how she lifted Sitara’s spirit at all times.
This was beautiful and I’ll keep repeating this the whole review, Sparks Like Stars broke my heart many times in many ways for Sitara, for her family, for her country, and for the many atrocities, humans had done in the name of God or religion.
This is the story of a woman trying to recover her heart, her soul, and her faith, trying to mend her broken parts that were left in her country.
The Narrations by Mozhan Marnò were amazing, this is my first time listening to her work and I really enjoy it, she really gave so much to Sitara and the story, she literally brought so much depth and brought so many tears with her amazing performance.
I’m totally a new fan of Nadia Hashimi, her words were beautiful, her story was very reliable and heartwrenching and I love that she brought up so many things that we didn’t know, and the rest of the world needs to know.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC ebook copy of Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi. The story follows a young girl, Aryana in 1978 Afghanistan, days before a military coup devastates her family. Her father is a trusted advisor to the President when the coup occurs. She escapes with the help of a guard and an American diplomat and immigrates to the U.S. Years later, now a successful surgeon she comes face to face with her past and must confront her trauma. Beautifully written, Sparks Like Stars is a book of heartbreaking loss, resiliency and forgiveness. I highly recommend – 5 stars!
Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi is a wonderful, haunting, and stunning fictional novel that is part historical fiction and part women’s fiction (it would be great for a book club pick).
The way the author was able to weave a story that seemed so real that it felt like I just experienced such a devastation along with the young Sitara, was impressive. Seeing what such a young girl had to experience, lose, and overcome with the loss of her family, life, and existence in Kabul, her new life and identity in America, and returning to Afghanistan many years later as Aryana to search for answers, closure, and some sort of peace made my heart go out to her so many times. It was heart wrenching, yet promising. Desolate and overwhelming, yet hopeful. Her journey will not be one I will soon forget.
5/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication.