Rating: 
Summary: Crescent- a mix of romance, culture, and food!
Review: "Crescent" is a great novel, especially if you are interested in learning the culture of Arabian Americans along with a hint of other several types of culture. There is also a very romantic love story incorporated into the novel, which made me want to fall in love all over again. The story takes place in the year 2000, so it is very current with the times. There are three main reasons why you must read the novel. They include: the love story, the culture and history of several ethnicities, specifically Arabians, and the food.
The story has a lot of romance. The author really portrays the feelings and emotions of a beginning relationship. Everyone who has ever been in love is really able to relate to the characters. Their feelings are very realistic. The reader is able to see inside the main character, Sirine's heart. The reader is able to see the good and bad, high and lows of all relationships. Sirine falls in love and also suffers her heartbreak. However, the ending leaves you with a good feeling, that love will break through the hardships. When Sirine felt pain I felt pain for her. The author used great description to allow the reader to feel what is inside the characters' hearts.
Next, there is a lot of history and culture of Arabians. However, there are also a lot of other cultures depicted. They include the American culture, Mexican and Arabian American. The book helps readers to understand and appreciate these cultures. For me, it was very insightful to read about Arabians, especially with all of the problems America is dealing with the Middle East. I recommend every American, every human read this novel, to better understand. It is not only for enjoyment but also for knowledge. Since the descriptions of the characters are so realistic, I really felt the pains and sorrows the characters felt because of discrimination. I truly feel that I have a better understanding of Arabian Americans. Abu-Jaber makes you see things that are going on in the world, which we don't sometimes want to see. For example, how at times, humans turn against one another. Also, Sadamm Hussein is depicted in a very evil way. This made me even happier that he has been captured. He caused so much sorrow to so many, even the characters in the novel. I wanted to reach in and tell the characters you are safe now, he is gone.
There is a great deal of food in the novel. Again, the descriptions are so clear, that I could actually see, taste, and smell the food. I never knew what the significant foods were to Arabian Americans, until I read the novel. It is a novel and cookbook all in one. I am not sure if the food would appeal to me, however, I really admired the way it is displayed. The food was created with so much love. The main character, Sirine, is a chef. She puts her whole life into making food for her loved ones. This was touching for a few reasons. First, I truly admired her devotion to her work. I have never seen or heard of anyone who loved his or her job that much. It made me realize that it is possible to love working. Also, her main reason for cooking with such devotion was to make others happy. She dedicated her life to cooking to make her close ones fulfilled. Their satisfaction was all she needed in life. All day and night, she concocted ways to make a meal to please her loved ones, even people she didn't even know. Cooking was Sirine's way of knowing she would always be loved.
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Look at Interesting People
Review: Abu-Jaber's Crescent is an insightful text that effectively sheds light on the feelings of displacement and belonging that run through the minds of those living in a foreign land. Right from the start, the setting of the cafe in the ethnic ghetto of Westwood as the primary gathering place provides an analytical atmosphere that allows the reader to see the ways in which the main characters of the novel are all searching for something they have not found. Throughout the entire text, a parallel frame narrative (if you can even call it that) provides a dual storyline that not only lightens the mood of the story, but adds complementary elements to the plight of characters like Han, referred to as a drowned Arab lost in a sea of confusion. The symbolism in the text is a key literary device that illuminates the characters' search, as we see first from Nathan's photographs, that attempt to capture a feeling of a long lost love, to Han's scarf, a reminder of a long lost home. By the end of the novel, after the recurrent ideas of dispossession, the author provides a lesson that meshes and mends the story together, best spoken in the words of the Uncle, who says, "That's why they died...Being somewhere he wasn't meant to be."(pg. 343) Indeed, as the story concludes, the two main characters each find their lot in life, as Sirine returns to her cooking, Han to his country.The largest praise I can give the author is to commend her on her usage of The Arabian Nights as a model of storytelling, a model that kept me enthralled to the text and on the edge of my seat. Overall, the author falls in line as a modern day Shaharazad. My most pressing question is when she will write the continuation to this story?
Rating:
Summary: "A crescent moon¿exquisite in its incompleteness"
Review: Abu-Jaber's latest novel, Crescent, is a lyrical tale of love, family and tradition, peopled with characters of Arabian descent, who live in an enclave in the heart of Los Angeles, California. Whether Iranian, Lebanese, Iraqi or Jordanian, all have in common the longing to return to the homelands of their youth, impossible given the socio-economic and political changes of the last decades. The author speaks particularly to the Iraqi exiles, in a poignant portrayal of their memories, folktales and family connections. She does so in poetic phrases that remind this reader of the prolific Alice Hoffman, as page after page is filled with such deeply moving images, sounds and smells that Crescent redefines cultural stereotypes, allowing each individual his/her own identity. The most important ingredient in this tasty concoction is the Arab-American Sirine, a master cook of ethnic delicacies at Nadia's Café, a Lebanese establishment, where students and other patrons gather to enjoy familiar dishes and discussions of their native countries. While current events swirl around her, Sirine blithely attends to the meals she lovingly prepares, stirring long-buried memories of her childhood longing for absentee parents, who travel to distant lands in an effort at humanitarian aid. When, finally, her parents fail to return home, Sirine quietly closes her heart against further loss. When an exiled Iraqi professor of literature catches Sirine's eye, she is unable to resist, suddenly vulnerable to the characteristic emotions of incipient romance, the excitement and passion of the moment. The charismatic Hanif Al Eyad introduces reality into the developing love affair; Han has a past as an exile from Iraq in his early twenties, a past that Sirine must acknowledge if they are to progress toward the necessary intimacy of a meaningful relationship. The tender love scenes have subtle touches of eroticism, a heady mix of that wonderful confusion of the first days of love. But Sirine resists asking about Han's life before her, only begrudgingly admitting the importance of his past on their future. An Arab-American, Sirine struggles with Han's attachment to the history that defines him, the siren-song of exile that was once irresistible, but has now cut him off from the beating heart of his country. With innate instinct, Sirine treads carefully in this vulnerable place, exquisitely aware of the delicate balance of the relationship. Once Sirine opens her heart to Han's story, the weight of the novel moves from the euphoria of beginning love to the revelation of faults and flaws, the human frailties that allow forgiveness. Her innocence shattered, Sirine learns the import of emotional commitment, the balance between pleasure and pain; through this experience, she becomes a more fully-defined woman. Many reviews hail Crescent as an erotic, sensual love story, but Abu-Jaber has written more than a simple romance, drawing the reader beneath the surface of the Arab community. With myriad complexities and allegiances, the idiosyncratic characters bring their experience, memories and family stories to Nadia's Café. With passionate longing, they examine life in exile from beloved countries of origin, a universality of experience: "When we walk away from home, we fall in love with our sadness". Abu-Jaber's prose is transcendent, as rich as the pastries Sirine serves to her customers; with bits of spice and sugar, the phrases meld together, fable and truth creating memory. We struggle to understand cultural and ideological differences in a world made smaller by communications, yet obscured by the barriers of language and tradition. Abu-Jaber welcomes us inside spice-scented, fragrant rooms where families gather for comfort, much the same as early American immigrants from Ireland and Italy, sharing familial traditions and hopes for the future. Crescent offers a rich, exuberant experience, one that leaves this reader as satisfied as an exotic meal topped off with a serving of vanilla ice cream, the perfect combination of the unexpected and the familiar. In a blend of cultural diversity and the banality of daily life in America, this author invites us to the bountiful buffet of humanity, a feast of the best we have to offer. Luan Gaines/ 2004.
Rating:
Summary: Crescent
Review: Abu-Jaber's novel Crescent is a fantastic book which blends fact and fantasy to create a new reality. Throughout the novel, the fairy tale of Abdelrahman Salahadin is told, which engrosses the reader in a magical world of the Middle East. However, after the tales of Abdelrahman and the mermaids, and his other adventures, the novel then proceeds to continue with the story of Sirine, an Iraqi-American. The reader is transported back to America, to Nadia's Café, the university, and daily life. While not as fantastic, Sirine's life is just as filled with drama and suspense as the fairy tales her uncle tells her.
Part of Sirine's drama takes the form of a love affair with Han, an Iraqi man who teaches poetry. The relationship is intense and matures quickly, and the reader is able to feel the emotions and sensuality that they feel for each other. But it is not just a love story, the novel encompasses more intense themes as well.
As an Arab-American, Sirine also has to deal with finding herself and her identity. Would she belong better in the Middle East where flavors, scents, pictures, and stories seem to be pulling her? Or is she too American, as Han tells her? Part of this identity struggle comes from her wish to more fully understand Han. Because he is Iraqi, she feels as though they are too different. She even states that because she is American, she doesn't have as much of a claim on him as Iraqi or Middle Eastern girls.
Part of her conflict comes from the distorted view she has of her father's homeland. Because she has never been there, she only has two sources to turn to for information. She can look to her friends and family, the memories of her parents, and the stories of her uncle, or she can look from an ignorant, though unfortunately popular American viewpoint, which sees the land as full of terrorists and fear. Throughout the novel, we see her trying to balance these opposing views and come to her own conclusions about the land she longs to visit.
The ending of the novel again has this conflict with respect to reality. Just as Sirine is unsure, so is the reader as to Han's reason for leaving and his death. The reader feels the same intense heartbreak as Sirine over Han, and feels the same betrayal. However, upon his return, the reader also feels the same joy and relief. But these emotions cloud a much more serious event, which might be the only flaw in the book. Han's capture and time spent in Iraq was glossed over. The torture and brutality he suffered, which can only be as horrific as Abdelrahman's stories are fantastic, is completely ignored. Rage and horror, which would be valid emotions, are conspicuously absent from the pages. Once again, the reader is left ignorant of what has happened. Like the man in the café told Sirine, "What do you care, you're American." The novel seems to me to end in that way, telling the reader to simply ignore the details, and be thankful for Han's return.
Crescent gives the reader a small taste of a world outside that of the average American's, but it does not give the whole picture. The text is an excellent beginning to a deep and moving story. However, the story is not complete, and leaves the reader with a shallow feeling at the end- happy for their own personal gain, and relatively ignorant of the outside world.
Rating:
Summary: Scrumptious Feast of Storytelling, Wisdom, Poetry, and Love
Review: Are you a foodie? Ever been in love? Enjoy a good yarn? Intrigued by exotic cultures? Do you fancy good poetry? Want to be moved? READ CRESCENT. You will be smitten and spiced and wooed and enraptured by the spell of a masterful storyteller and literary artist.
After finishing this book, I wanted to shout from the rooftops-"Everyone--stop what you are doing--read Crescent! Your life will be enriched for the experience." Abu-Jaber cooks with amazingly lyrical and unselfconscious metaphors. Without cliché, she stirs you into her characters' lives, serves up the smell of cardamom-spiced coffee, lentils and onions, tabouli-and dips you in the complexities of lust and love and adventure and hope.
Meanwhile, the layers of her story are like the complex layers of a great dish. Beyond the protagonist, Sirine's story, there is her love's story, and there are the stories of those around them both. At the same time, Sirine's beloved uncle and father-surrogate spins an Arabian-nights-style epic of mermaids and sirens and jinns and the Mother of All Fish, and oh yeah, Omar Sharif. The uncle's story slides in and out of the current story, and they each cast light on the other. Oh, it's all too complicated and juicy and fun to do justice by explaining it. Sounds chaotic, but in fact, Crescent makes brilliant, colorful good sense.
After this glorious feast of a book, you will be satisfied and happy. And enlightened a little about Middle-Eastern culture. It made me want to cook! And to love more completely. Thank you, Diana Abu-Jaber, for creating this work of love and for serving it up for our enjoyment.
Rating:
Summary: Crescent
Review: Before I started reading Crescent I thought it would be another confusing story, but I was wrong. The last couple of books that we read in our English class had me quite baffled, and it was hard for me to analyze things and discuss them. I didn't feel connected with any of them. Then I began to read this book and it was amazing. This was the first actual `love' story I have ever read. My first choice in a book is mostly mystery and suspense that usually ends up having a sort of love theme behind it some time along the way, but here you have a love story that has the mystery and suspense added to it. This book just made me want to keep going and going.
Another thing that pulled me into this story was the culture and cooking. I had quite a few Arabic friends growing up and I never really understood or knew much about their background. This story brings you in little by little with their traditions and ways of doing things. Abu-Jaber knows how to add in facts without over doing it. For example the character Han is knowledgeable and we catch him a couple times teaching his students or friends a little something new and it is easy for the reader to absorb because it is interwoven into the story's setting. The cooking had a big affect on me also. The vocabulary the author uses is so vivid you are actually standing in the kitchen while the meal is being made. The way she describes each spice and the way it is mixed in with the meat made me hungry I wanted to go try and make the meals. It was hard at first to keep up with all the different foods, but I got used to them along the way.
This novel was one of the most beautifully written stories I have read in a long time. There are just enough characters to keep you interested, but not to many so you forget who they all are. Each of them add a little something to the story, whether it is mystery, laughter, suspense, or love, which makes you want to keep going to find out more about them. I liked this story because the first quarter of the book was about meeting the characters and getting drawn into the story. The second quarter started to get a bit questionable, I had all types of thoughts running through my head about certain characters. Then the third quarter got very enthralling, things started to unfold that you couldn't wait another page longer to find out what happened next. Finally the last section comes and it is every emotion you experience through the whole book together as one.
I recommend this book to anyone who has the time to sit and enjoy a good story or that wants to broaden their horizons a little bit. It has history, culture, laughter, and love what else could you ask for. The writing is just fascinating to read, it really does bring you into the story. It relaxes you when you read about her cooking. It made me feel like I was comforted by the movements of the kitchen just as the author describes. The writing is that clear you have to read the book to understand where I am coming from.
Rating:
Summary: Crescent
Review: Before I started reading Crescent I thought it would be another confusing story, but I was wrong. The last couple of books that we read in our English class had me quite baffled, and it was hard for me to analyze things and discuss them. I didn't feel connected with any of them. Then I began to read this book and it was amazing. This was the first actual 'love' story I have ever read. My first choice in a book is mostly mystery and suspense that usually ends up having a sort of love theme behind it some time along the way, but here you have a love story that has the mystery and suspense added to it. This book just made me want to keep going and going.
Another thing that pulled me into this story was the culture and cooking. I had quite a few Arabic friends growing up and I never really understood or knew much about their background. This story brings you in little by little with their traditions and ways of doing things. Abu-Jaber knows how to add in facts without over doing it. For example the character Han is knowledgeable and we catch him a couple times teaching his students or friends a little something new and it is easy for the reader to absorb because it is interwoven into the story's setting. The cooking had a big affect on me also. The vocabulary the author uses is so vivid you are actually standing in the kitchen while the meal is being made. The way she describes each spice and the way it is mixed in with the meat made me hungry I wanted to go try and make the meals. It was hard at first to keep up with all the different foods, but I got used to them along the way.
This novel was one of the most beautifully written stories I have read in a long time. There are just enough characters to keep you interested, but not to many so you forget who they all are. Each of them add a little something to the story, whether it is mystery, laughter, suspense, or love, which makes you want to keep going to find out more about them. I liked this story because the first quarter of the book was about meeting the characters and getting drawn into the story. The second quarter started to get a bit questionable, I had all types of thoughts running through my head about certain characters. Then the third quarter got very enthralling, things started to unfold that you couldn't wait another page longer to find out what happened next. Finally the last section comes and it is every emotion you experience through the whole book together as one.
I recommend this book to anyone who has the time to sit and enjoy a good story or that wants to broaden their horizons a little bit. It has history, culture, laughter, and love what else could you ask for. The writing is just fascinating to read, it really does bring you into the story. It relaxes you when you read about her cooking. It made me feel like I was comforted by the movements of the kitchen just as the author describes. The writing is that clear you have to read the book to understand where I am coming from.
Rating:
Summary: carrie's crescent review
Review: Carrie H
Review #2 Wow! This is exactly what I thought to myself after reading the novel Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber. This novel drew me in right from the beginning. A story about Sirine, an Arab-American woman who needs to connect to her Arabian heritage, and she does this in a form of her cooking. I could close my eyes and smell the spices, onions, and sauces she would make for the restaurant she worked in. I also began to realize a person does not have to be Arabian to enjoy the aspects of their culture.
As the story grows and more characters are introduced you are drawn into every feeling and emotion that comes into play. When Sirine falls in love, you can feel it along with her. Her emotions become your emotions. You can feel the way she is being looked at by Han, and the way he touches her. The confusion and hesitation she feels draws you closer to him. The way he speaks and talks about his past leaves you to let your imagination run wild and try to draw conclusions about his secrecy. Not only do you feel this way towards Han, but also his friends.
Everyone in this book has a certain mystique about them drawing you even closer into the text. Not only are these characters Arabian, but American also. There is no room for discrimination in this book it just opens your mind to begin to experience different things within your own life. This is what happens to Sirine.
Sirine comes to experience her background through Han and vice-versa. He seems to be mesmerized by her being American but still wanting to learn about his culture, and she desperately wants to become closer in tune with her Arabian side. Together they find themselves through each other and they are able to deal and face things that each was hiding in their own past.
Every time I would pick this book up to read I was drawn in further and further. Emotions came into my reading like never before. I began to feel curious, shocked, happy, angry at times to the point I wanted to yell at one of the characters and say "what are you doing"! I even cried, and I refused to put the book down until I read the very last page. The excitement I felt with the turn of every page is something I really never experienced as a reader.
Sometimes I even wondered how such things could happen, and I was able to gather up my thoughts and feelings and put my own reasoning together. I did not expect for things to turn out the way they did. I was torn between my emotions. I realized that sometimes things happen in order for a person to find themselves, their purpose in life. This happened not only for Sirine but for Han too. Everything at the end began to make sense. I was finally able to put the pieces together of why people so different were brought together to share their dreams.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Even after finishing it, I couldn't stop thinking about what happens at the end. I guarantee this book will hold your interest, make you wonder, laugh, and even cry. It's like a mystery love story where you as a reader try to put all the pieces together, and the more you read on, the more everything begins to fall into place. So get lost within this novel like I did. To read the book Crescent is to experience, and to experience is to feel. This is what the reading will do for you.
Rating:
Summary: Crescent
Review: Crescent is a great dish for anyone who wants to try the flavor of the Arab cuisine. It is a good starter for those who had not tried it yet. It has rich, both sweet and sour taste, a little spicy, but the amount of spice does not make you thirsty. It is stuffed with a love plot, covered with drama, and sprinkled with bits of everyday life struggle. A reader can feel its fresh and fine ingredients, and is able to notice right away that they were matched together so that their taste does not collide with each other. However, sometimes you cannot retrieve the full taste of the ingredients, and Crescent asks for more detailed preparation before it was served. There are also times when you wish the other ingredients were used, based on the experience you had having tried dishes of other cuisines. The dish that chef Diana Abu-Jaber served is not the one from upper, upscale downtown restaurant, but not in the demeaning sense. It carries the best what small, cozy restaurants that are hidden against the eyes of masses and provide intimate atmosphere to its guests offer. It looks like it might have as well been prepared by Sirine, the main character of the story, who worked in one of such restaurants in the Iranian neighborhood of Los Angeles. She makes the essence of the story, and gives it rich, and delicate taste. A reader is brought to a table a relatively unknown, somehow exotic and extremely interesting array of other characters on a plate. There is Han, the Arab literature professor who fled Iraq and found his temporary refuge in L.A., and his personal asylum in the arms of Sirine. He is the most complex, multilayered like onion and difficult-to-comprehend personality, carrying a bundle of experience he had brought from Iraq. Sirine is the one who peels off the layers he is covered with, revealing his struggle with himself and helplessness of inability to come back to his home country. By getting more to know him, she finds the real flavor of her life, an important ingredient that she had missed. Um-Nadia, the owner of the restaurant, is another extraordinary person to be found on the plate. She is a mother, advisor, mentor, and guide to whoever is in trouble or seeks help with their problems. Aziz, the self-acclaimed poet, might be the last to choose from. He is a heart-conqueror of all the women that he finds on his path. However, the motivation for his actions is to get satisfaction of his selfish needs. Sirine is not the only one who did not resist his smooth talk, and assurances about his true intentions. A lot of question marks stand behind Nathan, the student and passionate photographer. He is veiled with a mist of mystery and secrecy, and, actually, no one can really figure out of what he is made of. Rana, Han's student, brings spice to the story. She stirs up the relationship between Sirine and Han. She makes Sirine boil inside, as she perceives her as her rival to win his heart. In contrary, Sirine's uncle gives her a peace of mind. He treats her more than his daughter. He knows her inside out, senses when she is overwhelmed with problems, gives her advice, usually by telling the story of Abdelrahman Salahadin, a reckless adventurer, and provides her with his support. There are plenty of other characters in the menu, which make it diverse and assorted. On one hand, the story is easy digestible. On the other, it does not leave a reader with a sense of completeness. As it can leave a reader still hungry, it can also make you thirsty at the same time. Not because of the spices it contains, but for the simple fact it makes you beg for the completion or its sequel. The story that unwinds with every page you read and sucks you in with its content is being cut without any clues as to what might have happened to main characters. The dish that made your mouth water is suddenly taken from you, without any explanation. You are not given either desert or anything to drink. The ending is not satisfactory, and definitely asks for another serving to experience the full taste of the dish. If the chef Abu-Jaber did an effort to reveal more of the crescent, and uncover some of its missing parts, the story would shine like a full moon.
Rating:
Summary: A delight for all the senses
Review: Diana Abu-Jaber's lush tale of cooking, love, longing, and exile set against the US's ongoing conflict with Iraq stirs the soul and totally fills the senses. Crescent is a love story between an L.A.-born and -bred, green-eyed, half-Arab blonde chef and an exiled Iraqi intellectual with a mysterious past. Interwoven into the Sirine and Han's love story is the fable of Abdelrahman Salahadin, told by Sirine's uncle, the gently devoted man who raises her after her parents are killed overseas when Sirine is nine years old. Both Abdelrahman's destiny and Sirine and Han's love unfold amid lush surroundings, complete with the heady aromas of Middle Eastern food and the fragrance of the mejnoona tree, which blooms behind the busy café where Sirine works. Anyone who appreciates either good food or a good love story will find Crescent an absolute delight. Crescent is beautiful and sensual and languid all at the same time, like a perfect Spring day in Oregon.
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