As soon as I began to read this book I was hooked! I loved how the book was very descriptive without being tedious, the four main characters are very likeable. The story is about the friendship between Raheen the narrator and Karim who seem destined soul mates even after Karim moves away and how they deal with being apart. Its also about the voilence in Karachi and how Raheen and her friends deal with it with the political troubles. I dont know if my review does this book justice but let me just say its a great book. Read it!

The novel begins as Aliya is on a London-bound airplane after graduating from college in Massachusetts. Aliya is a young Pakistani woman and is on her way home to Karachi. She is a natural storyteller and spends the flight relaying tales of her family, the Dar-e-Dils, to several of the other passengers. Throughout their history, the Dard-e-Dil family has had sets of 'not-quite twins' who bring bad luck or shame to the family. Aliya tells tales of her family and these twins back to the time of the Mughals, during the time of the Partition of India and Pakistan, and up until modern day Pakistan. The novel alternates between the present day and Aliya's telling of the family legends.

The book contains fabulous descriptions of food that made my mouth water. Shamsie has created excellent, vivid descriptions of meals cooked by Aliya's family's cook, Masood. The title of the book is derived from a discussion between Masood and another character regarding the use of spices.

'Salt and Saffron' explores issues of misunderstandings and expectations between family members. It also raises the concept of fate and relations between different social classes. The prose did seem a bit 'thick' and overly descriptive in parts, and probably could've been shortened, but it wasn't enough to detract from the book as a whole. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Indo-Pak literature and also to anyone who loves to read about food. I plan on picking up other books by Shamsie in the future!

I'll be brief. Salt and Saffron was beautiful, interesting, and very well-written. I am eager to read Shamsie's other books. The major themes in this novel are family, class divisions and history. My only regret was that it wasn't longer!!

It might be because of my Pakistani background, but I thought this book was fabulous.

Aliya's stories about her complex Dard-e-Dil clan were intriguing... her observations about her family and life in pakistan were funny (I laughed out loud at times...because her observations were funny because they were so true)...

During the whole story, Aliya is trying to figure out who she is.. is she a snob ... tied down by her upper class noble upbringing/tied to tradition... is she an educated, open-minded woman that can accept her cousin marrying a servant... the conflict within made this book even more fun to read...

I was impressed with the way this book was written... it was an easy read (very conversational)... the descriptions were lovely..

Compared to the glut of writers from India writing in English and being lauded at present, it is comparatively rarely that we get a writer from Pakistan and especially a female. Therefore, being a Pakistani, I was very interested in reading this book. I found that the writing in the book was very accomplished, with a nice knack for using interesting words. I found the book to have a slightly slow start but once I got into the book I was eager to find out what happens next. The descriptive passages in the book were probably the best and there was also a slightly acerbic humour underlying the whole story too. The political undertones were apparent. Overall it was a good read with some delightful passages but could have been made more readable if the characters had been developed further. Good. Recommended.:-)