[Book Review] Not A Word About Love

One of my favorite things to do is read. I have a notebook where I keep a list of books I've read.

This latest book added to my list, Not A Word About Love by Hana Goldberg, was a pleasure to read and add to my list. 

From her website: Hana Goldberg is a Lifetime Achievement Award winner from Israel's Association of Authors and Composers (ACUM), a bestselling and critically acclaimed Israeli novelist and poet and an A-list lyricist with hundreds of popular songs and many #1 hits. Hana has written many bestselling books and she is a frequent guest on Israeli television shows and has her own column about literature in Israel's most popular web portal - ynet.co.il. Since her first book at the age of seventeen, and through her bestsellers and hundreds of songs, Hana has been a strong and original voice in Israeli culture.

This book is a total page turner. I have not stopped reading since I got it. 

Here is the description from Amazon.com: After eleven years of marriage, Maya is swept away on a sensual, daring and hilarious journey following a random meeting with a stranger. Through alleys fragrant with the pungent smell of fried rice, amid child beggars and vendors of psychedelic fabrics, she makes surprising discoveries about the stranger, and about herself. How far will she be willing to go?

Disclosure: I received this book for free for review purposes. All opinions are my own. 

I generally do not like first person narrative, but Ms. Goldberg has written this point of view in a way that keeps me extremely engaged. 

From the beginning, you can tell that Maya is not in a happy place. The tale begins on a flight from Tel Aviv to Bangkok where she meets a stranger that she is instantly attracted to. Then her trip of relaxation becomes anything but. 

From there the author spins a sensual tale of lust and finding yourself. 

In the dirty streets of Bangkok she struggles with not only the affair she's having with the mysterious stranger, but also struggles with the loss of her mother. One particular moment, with an elderly corn vendor in a back alley, touched my heart in a way that made me weep.

There are jumps between the present time of Maya's adventures in Thailand, as well as flashbacks that really speak about who Maya is as a character, why she is the way she is. You get to see her life back in Tel Aviv with her husband Uri and her daughter, and feel her unhappiness, taste it. She's settled in her life and career, and essentially fallen into a rut. With her mother's passing, in my opinion Maya is just moving through life and not really living it. 

It took her traveling halfway across the world to really learn to live again, have a sexual awakening and give into her desires.There are quite a few places in this book where you can cut the sexual tension with a knife it is so thick. 

This tale is a journey of discovering one's self worth, and realization of the beautiful things you already have in life, in my opinion. Maya takes chances with the stranger from the plane that could not only destroy her marriage with Uri, but also herself. It's a very destructive relationship, but it was a destructive step that Maya needed to take to realize that she was a woman of worth, that she did not have to live that same routine life that she lived in Tel Aviv.

Having my ancestry originate in Palestine and in what is now Israel, I found Hana's voice to be very riveting, giving me a peek into the mind of a modern Israeli woman, to see her passions and struggles. 

If you are interested in reading this great book, you can click the title of the book in the top of this post and it will lead you to the amazon listing. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can read it free on your kindle!

I received this book for free for review purposes. All opinions are my own.