Review of Things Left Unsaid by Sara Jafari

*Things Left Unsaid* by Sara Jafari (2025). Published by St. Martin’s Press.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Running a book blog and reading almost two hundred books a year (I’ve done this almost every year of my life—it’s been a fascinating trend, even when I’ve been too busy to exist outside of life and work), I tend to know what kind of books I like. I’m also very intentional in analyzing the trends of what I’m reading, as I’m genuinely committed to diversifying the books I pick up and see new perspectives.

As a blogger and a professional writer/editor myself, a place I have always advocated for is the library. I was born and raised in the United States, and while not everyone has access to an incredible library system like we do, I’ve come to realize that Americans take for granted what their local libraries can provide for them. There are countries where people literally do not have access to books, but we have these free places where we can check them out for free along with movies and so many other goodies.

It’s like a wonderland for me, and I go to my local library often. I try to support them as well as much as I can, especially considering how library systems here in the US are increasingly coming under threat. People don’t want nice things it seems. I get a lot of my books from the library because of my limited budget and the fact, at the time of writing this, I was preparing to start a full time job after a lengthy time of being unemployed. I like to request the new releases, wander in the new fiction section after I pick up my requests, then head into the stacks to see what I can find that catches my eye this time.

That’s how I found today’s blog post and book: Things Left Unsaid! I was in the new fiction section when I saw the spine of this book, and I knew immediately that this was an Iranian author because of the last name. Lo and behold, when I read the synopsis on the inside book jacket, I was right.

So I checked it out, as I love supporting Iranian diaspora authors (as one myself)! I read this over the course of a week and had a blast taking my time before I started this job.

Let’s get into the review!

An Iranian-British woman working in publishing finds herself face-to-face with an old flame from her childhood.

Throughout this novel, we bounce back and forth between the past and present of the two main characters, but we largely see the present day through the perspective of Shirin Bayat. She’s 26, working at a publishing house, and finds the diversity initiatives there to be quite performative. More on that and protesting later in the novel, but for now she’s trying to live her best life in London.

It’s at a house party where she bumps into her childhood friend Kian after so many years. We see in the past chapters, which focus on Kian and his background (specifically how his brother was sent to prison when he was in school and how he learned to deal with that fact), but basically these two were once tight as thieves when they were in school.

However, there were a series of events that forced them to no longer be associated with each other. A big culprit behind these events, which I won’t go into detail about in this review, is reappearing in Shirin’s life as well through the publishing house, which leads to some mixed internal feelings about everything goin on.

Meanwhile, Kian is a successful artist, which isn’t surprising considering the sheer amount of talent he had even when he was in school. As Shirin grapples with her workplace, family matters happening back in the homeland (her grandmother is dying back in Tehran), and the increasing influence of Kian back in her life, things are about to completely change for her.

Talking to Kian reminds her of the beauty of life and the people surrounding her, even when her job makes Shirin want to pull her hair out. And as we see throughout the course of the novel, when these two have found each other again, they’re going to hold each other close and not let go.

There are other obstacles trying to force them apart, especially when they both have to make big life and career decisions. Sometimes it’s the right person and the wrong time, but will these two fall victim to that? Their story is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of other situations though. Some of the most vibrant colors to me include Shirin’s friends, who are quite the characters, and her family back in Iran.

Then with Kian it’s also interesting to see his family background and his budding art career. I am always interested in Iranian diasporas creating art and working in industries such as publishing, even if they’re not Iranian Americans, because we’re often not represented in Western literature and culture. So to see this representation in the arts is really interesting to me!

Overall Thoughts

I would say I enjoyed this novel and its writing, but I don’t know if I will be returning to it. It was lovely to read about Shirin and Kian’s journeys, and I wholeheartedly did like this book while I was reading it. But I didn’t love it to the point where I wanted a personal copy in my library.

The characters were well-fleshed out, and I particularly enjoyed the discussions on publishing that Shirin raised with her job experience. As someone who has worked as an author and within publishing in different capacities/publishers, I do think a lot of mainstream publishers are incredibly performative and refuse to take risks with BIPOC voices.

I’ve been loving the increasing number of Iranians in publishing lately. I read Liquid recently too, which proves to me that we are becoming a bigger influence in the publishing industry, when it comes to author representation, and that there’s a future for my own writing. Seeing these books is pretty cool to me as a second/first generation (depending on your definition, or the legalities of whatever government you’re considering) Iranian American!

I say go pick this one up if you’re interested from your local library or indie bookstore. It’s definitely worth checking out at least once.

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