The Aviary Gate - Katie Hickman

Kind of torn on The Aviary Gate, but overall I would give it a decent review. I was not familiar at all with the history of the late 1500s in Istanbul, so I enjoyed reading about life in a harem during that time period. There are a lot of people, names and places to remember, which are hard to keep straight in the beginning. Partially because of that, I had trouble concentrating on the initial chapters of the book, but it helped that chapters flucuate between present day and 1599 in Istanbul.

The present day part of the book is very easy to follow, because you have a pretty weak female heroine, Elizabeth, with an irritating 'lover,' and a standard subplot of boy being mean to girl, girl accepts meanness with love and lust, girl's best friend tells her to move on, girl finally gets out of town to do research and realizes guy is a jerk... etc. etc. You don't even understand why Elizabeth is so into him, he's not even good in bed!

The Istanbul part of the book has a lot more intrigue, but by the end it seems a bit over the top. I liked the interaction between Celia and her best friend at the harem, I liked the descriptions about how the women were prepared for sleeping with the sultan, the status given to the sultan's favorites, and I enjoyed learning about how the women came to the harem.

By the end though, I didn't feel really satisfied. I didn't feel Elizabeth had grown a backbone, and the huge mystery in which Celia gets herself involved is just so overdone I ended up just second guessing why and how everything occurred. It was worth reading, but not one of my favorite books this year.