Rating: 
Summary: a real treasure
Review: I would describe this book as a little gem not because it is short or a quick read (it's neither) but because you come to appreciate and love the characters based on their relationships day-to-day - the narrative takes its time drawing you in, finally making you really feel like a member of the crowd at Um-Nadia's cafe - you come to feel the passion between the two main characters through the richness of the author's descriptions of gatherings, meals (food is used often as a means of truly magical imagery), time together (not always intimate times) - by the time I got to the surprising turn of events toward the end, I was utterly won over by this pair and I wept at the end - not once but twice - I was so taken aback by my reaction to this book that I just re-read the last 3-4 pages and wept again - the years in Iraq under Hussein are a somber undertone and are used to move the storyline along but this tragic period of history does not defeat the characters - this book is an absolute wonder
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Story
Review: Lisa Mack
English 230 Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jaber is a modern novel that depicts romance in a very fresh way. The story is centered on the main character, Sirine, an Arab-American cook that found love when she least expected it. This novel is equipped with very unique characters that intermingle together to form a great support system for Sirine in this very complicated time in her life.
I think I enjoyed this book for two reasons: the setting and the characters. Both of these elements gave the otherwise common love storyline a unique, and likable variation. I enjoyed the setting so much because it seemed to be a real place. I could feel myself sitting in the café, and being apart of the storyline myself. The café was the center of the whole novel. It was the place where Sirine felt most at home. It was the place she found her first true love. It was the place that women bonded to form a tenacious relationship. It also defined the Arab-American culture in a way that was very easy for an outsider to understand and feel apart of. The author made the setting a cozy, familiar place, and I felt I had been there many times before.
The characters in this novel are also very real and familiar. Sirine, a thirty nine year old woman, is very strong-willed and easy to love. The author has her falling in love in a non-traditional way, which makes the story intriguing, and very interesting to read. Falling in love later in life, with much more maturity and open-mindness gives this love story a unique vibe. Other characters consist of her uncle, her quirky, independent, female boss, and her love interest. Diana Abu-Jaber does a great job creating a personality for each of these characters that makes you feel as if you know them personally.
Another profound aspect of the novel is the ethnic and cultural component of the story. The setting, characters, and theme all have a cultural aspect to them. The main character struggles with an intercultural relationship. The rest of the characters all deal with their own cultural issues, and the setting deals with ethnic food, and an Arab-American community.
To conclude my review, I will again say that I enjoyed this novel immensely. The setting, and well-portrayed characters are the elements that pull this story together to make it a real page-turner. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a love story with a suspenseful, and modern twist.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Story
Review: Lisa Mack
English 230 Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jaber is a modern novel that depicts romance in a very fresh way. The story is centered on the main character, Sirine, an Arab-American cook that found love when she least expected it. This novel is equipped with very unique characters that intermingle together to form a great support system for Sirine in this very complicated time in her life.
I think I enjoyed this book for two reasons: the setting and the characters. Both of these elements gave the otherwise common love storyline a unique, and likable variation. I enjoyed the setting so much because it seemed to be a real place. I could feel myself sitting in the café, and being apart of the storyline myself. The café was the center of the whole novel. It was the place where Sirine felt most at home. It was the place she found her first true love. It was the place that women bonded to form a tenacious relationship. It also defined the Arab-American culture in a way that was very easy for an outsider to understand and feel apart of. The author made the setting a cozy, familiar place, and I felt I had been there many times before.
The characters in this novel are also very real and familiar. Sirine, a thirty nine year old woman, is very strong-willed and easy to love. The author has her falling in love in a non-traditional way, which makes the story intriguing, and very interesting to read. Falling in love later in life, with much more maturity and open-mindness gives this love story a unique vibe. Other characters consist of her uncle, her quirky, independent, female boss, and her love interest. Diana Abu-Jaber does a great job creating a personality for each of these characters that makes you feel as if you know them personally.
Another profound aspect of the novel is the ethnic and cultural component of the story. The setting, characters, and theme all have a cultural aspect to them. The main character struggles with an intercultural relationship. The rest of the characters all deal with their own cultural issues, and the setting deals with ethnic food, and an Arab-American community.
To conclude my review, I will again say that I enjoyed this novel immensely. The setting, and well-portrayed characters are the elements that pull this story together to make it a real page-turner. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a love story with a suspenseful, and modern twist.
Rating:
Summary: fulfilling
Review: Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel. "Crescent" is so delicious, compelling, poetic, wise, thrilling, charming and sweet, it cannot be forgotten. Enlightneing in its world view, Crescent is transport to cultures we want to understand but don't. Beyond that, it is romance, family, adventure, politics and fable. It is energizing.
Rating:
Summary: fulfilling
Review: Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel. "Crescent" is so delicious, compelling, poetic, wise, thrilling, charming and sweet, it cannot be forgotten. Enlightneing in its world view, Crescent is transport to cultures we want to understand but don't. Beyond that, it is romance, family, adventure, politics and fable. It is energizing.
Rating:
Summary: Engl 230
Review: The novel Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber is an extremely romantic and excellent novel that expresses the great devotion of love, food, and culture through the eyes of a talented Arab American woman. After I finished reading this novel, I constantly mentioned it to my friends, family, classmates, and now I recommend it to all that view this review. It was such a thrilling novel because the characters force you to love, hate and draw predictions about what and how these characters would end up being throughout the novel. All through my reading of this novel, from one chapter to the next, I arouse with constant erratic predications and conclusions that constantly changed throughout. The structure of Diana Abu-Jaber's writing tends to leave the reader with mysterious reactions about the characters. Despite the brilliant structure of the novel, there were a couple of things that attracted me to this novel the most which were the reflections on food, love and culture. These concepts intermingle together in this small yet extraordinary in context Café. Sirine's love and devotion to her authentic cooking leads to the love of culture that is brought into Um Nadia's Café, which eventually leads to Sirine's personal love towards Hanif. The most powerful and astonishing aspect of this novel was the significance of food. I had never realized how food can optimistically reflect upon beautiful aspects and cherished moments that we treasure in life. She conveys a whole new lovely meaning to every spice that she stirs up, which makes her as unique and loveable as she is. Sirine's exquisite cooking stirs up memories of her parents and questions about her identity as an Arab American. Sirine does not arouse these questions about her identity while she is in Um Nadia's Café because she's the one who binds all the Arab cultures that are brought in this small café with her exquisite and delicately made food. Um Nadia's Café is an excellent setting that brings all the lonely and homesick university students of different cultures in a place that they can reflect to as "HOME". These cultivated students are connected together with their remembrance, devotion and sense of loss of their homeland and culture. Numerous aspects bind all these cultures together in Um Nadia's Café but it is mostly Sirine's cooking. Sirine's food brings many students and "Professors" in to the Café where she eventually meets the love of her life, Hanif. Their relationship is quite Intriguing throughout the novel. The relentless lies and differences between Sirine and Hanif put their love on a seesaw ride. Even though Sirine is half Iraqi and Hanif is pure Iraqi, Sirine's predictions on whether Hanif is attracted to the American side of her or the Iraqi Part of her brings her to a point where she questions her identity as an Arab American. Which part of her identity does she choose to satisfy Hanif, or does she remain to be herself? Their struggles with their relationship brought me to a lesson that I concluded to be essential in this novel. It is to never be emotionally and physically attached to a relationship that is not yet stable. Being attached to someone leaves you on the borderline between happiness and heartbreak. If you read this novel, you will find out which side of the borderline did Hanif and Sirine fall in!
Rating: 
Summary: An Imaginative Tale
Review: The novel, Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jabar is a wonderfully written book that shows the complexities of people of different cultures living together and different people dealing with their own culture. Sirine, the main character,is Arabian-American and she continuously has issues with the fact that she does not know more about her Arabian culture and the place that her father grew up. I love the way that she feels connected to her past and her parents through everyday things that she remembers, though she still struggles to really understand where they came from. The conflict between this yearinig for knowledge of the past and living under the present ideals is very interesting.
It is very refreshing to read a novel that is about different ethnicities that has a non-biased approach to this sensitive subject. Abu-Jabar does a great job at finding a balance between the American way of life, the Arabian way of life, and those that are somewhere in the middle. There are characters who are Arabian and still act as if they were in their home country. There is an American who knows more about the Middle East than some of the natives, and there are many others who are in between. There does not seem to be one ethnicity that is better than the other, they are all just different. With all of these characters the reader gets many different views and the story becomes more balanced so that everyone can relate to a character.
This novel also keeps the reader thinking the entire time. There is a lot of substance in this novel, but it is also an intriguing story. The characters are mysterious and they draw the reader into their lives and keep them wanting more. There is something peculiar going on during the whole novel and it is a challenge and a joy to try to figure out who was up to what and who could possibly not be who I thought they were. The many different characters are very relatable and the story line is one of love and pain as well as some sort of secret. Everyone seems to be in on different things than everyone else. The plot line grows more and more intense as the reader finds out things about the characters' pasts. This was a fabulous book that was incredibly difficult to put down.
Rating:
Summary: "Crescent"
Review: The novel, Cresent by Diana Abu-Jaber, is a romantic tale, which captivates the reader in a creative light. The main character, " Sirine is a thirty-nine-year-old, who works as a chef at Um-Nadia's Lebanese restaurant. Here her passions for cooking are developed as a sort of replacement for love. Sirine struggles with issues of her Arab-American identity, as well as the dearth of her parents. Raised by her Iraqui-Immigrant uncle, she is shown much love but she has difficulty expressing this. This is why food plays a major role because of its consistency and comfort that it provides-- and a little help from her furry friend, her dog, "King Babar." Her life goes through a "magical carpet ride" as her "Arabian" prince comes to her attention. Here Sirine cosses paths with an Arabic literature professor, "Han." Han immediately takes an interest in Sirine. The two begin dating and its true love so to speak. The two learn about themselves through eachother, as they blossom into stronger individuals, and the relationship flourishes as well. The novel shifts from time to time, from the story of Sirine and her life as an Arab-American, to a magical fairy-tale told by Sirine's uncle, which bears alot of similarity to Sirines life. The story intertwines with her life, as if it were almost parallel to her own tale! The story is of an "Aunt Camille" who gave birth to "Abdelrahman Salahadin," who sold himself to slavers and escaped by faking his drowning in the Red Sea. Aunt Camille tracks him down by seducing the terrible Sir Richard Burton, walked to the source of the White Nile, confirred with the Mother of All Fish, and struck deals with Jinnns and Mermaids as well as Blue-Skinned Bedouin Tribes! After all of this he ends up in Hollywood as an actor! This may seem ludacrist but this fairy-tale is a reflection of Sirine's life with a creative twist! Throughout this story it gives reference to the Arab culture, in a sort of cultural exchange. The author gives a possible opinnionated viewpoint on Arab men as well, which is somewhat romantized in this novel. I love how ths book captivated my senses with its colorful impression of life. It tells how to cook, how to eat, and how to love! This is one close-knitt comunity, friends as well as family, who each play their own special part in making this a magnificant, magical novel! Um-Nadia plays a role of mother to Sirine. The others that work or come into the cafe are seen as family as well. There seems to be a bond within the Arab culture, unlike the Americans, that cannnot be broken. By this I mean that they are very close with one another-- caring and sharing with eachother. They have a certain acceptance, which is a very admirable quality. For this reason alone, I suggest this book for reading to experience the love within their daily lives! The "Cresent" has a specific meaning in this story which Abu-Jaber is trying to portray. The "Cresent" is a Arab symbol for the faith of Islam. With this idea in mind comes committment which is shown in the relations at home, at work, and most definately with Sirine and Han. This passionate tale unfolds it multi-dimentional layers, exposing its soul for all to see. I encourage you to read this to understand the spirit of Cresent which is alive in this novel, in Um-Nadia's cafe, and in their community. It would be to your advantage to hop on the "magic carpet," and take this book for a ride, as I'm sure it will enchant you as much as it did me!
Rating:
Summary: Delightfully Delicious....
Review: The scents, scenes and stories from this book will follow me for the rest of my life. I felt somehow changed inside when I finished the last page---enlightened and educated about Middle Eastern people and in awe of their myths, food and lives. I came away changed, enchanted and wanting to visit the Baghdad of Han and Sirine's story. Ms. Abu-Jaber has woven a beautiful, intricate, sweet-scented tale of love, food, families and life. The descriptions of the food made such an impression on me that I went and found some of the recipes from the story to make for myself so I could experience the flavors and make them my own. I highly recommend this book...I wish that all Americans could read this to better understand the culture of the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: A meal for body and soul
Review: The tender unfolding of the romance, plus the heady aromas and atmosphere of Nadia's Cafe kept me coming back for more. This book is about food, romance, love, and loss: a lovely novel which will stand the test of time. Read it---and then read it again, and read it aloud---it's that good.
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