book info: on sale: now copy from: public library pages: 348 review written: 21.12.17 originally published: 2009 edition read: Penguin NAL 2009 title: Rooftops of Tehran author: Mahbod Seraji In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari's stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah's secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice... my thoughts: This book was first published in 2009 and I remember adding it to my list around that time but never actually reading it since I preferred checking out library books to ...
a deep kind of understanding and connectedness with another human being.
Having compassion for people as a whole, for the whole palette of humanity, all of us with all strengths,
weaknesses,
our flaws,
our nobility
and fragility
"Compassion is kindness, forgiveness, and empathy"
-Tom Hiddleston
On Us
Yes. Compassion is empathy, to feel with another person, and I think it's this quality, along with kindness, that makes someone a better person. I'm working on this...because when I see someone in pain or anxiety...I don't know what to do. I'm not that emotionally stable myself, so I do feel compassion for them, but I don't know how to act upon it sometimes. If I see someone crying, I'll go up and pat his or her back, or if I know him, I'll give him a hug. I really wish I could do more to help people, and I am working on it. How about you?
On Literature:
It's a quality that I think is overseen in YA Lit. It's understanding someone, and not judging him or her for whatever's been done. I can think of one character that has this spectacular and respectable and mature trait: Jem from The Infernal Devices books by Cassandra Clare. He is my favourite character from that book. For a character in a book to have very human compassion for others is compelling, and makes Jem even more of a beautiful person, despite his fabulous looks (silvery hair and eyes? And naturally too? That's pretty awesome)
But finding and writing these kind of forgiving characters is a hard thing to do, because it contradicts our instinctive nature. Writing a bully is so easy. He's mean, he curses, and he has a troubled past. When we get hurt, it's easy to blame someone or wish for revenge, but it's hard to forgive. Once, long ago, I remember hearing something along the lines of "forgiveness is the greatest gift" and I live by that. It's part of the reason, or rather more of the reason, why I hate books that are centred around revenge. Where the whole plot is about getting revenge. Sooner or later, the protagonist will realise that's not what he or she wants.
I would like to see more complicated characters in young adult fiction. Not something to just entertain the senses, but the entertain the mind. Right now, on a scale of flat to super dynamic, we're in between. I see some great characters, and then really weak ones. In order to write out that complex of a character, there has to be a good storyline as well, or if it's in a cliche storyline, make it the best.
Compassion is something that needs to be present. I don't enjoy shallow books about revenge. I mean, what lesson, or what message, is that sending to readers? That it's fine to act on revenge to an ex-boyfriend and make his life miserable for breaking up with you? For getting revenge on that super pretty girl that's stolen your boyfriend? A message of forgiveness needs to be heard, you know?
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