Senin, 23 Mei 2016

Book Review : Pudarnya Pesona Cleopatra

Author : Habiburrahman El Shirazy
Publisher : Republika



Pudarnya Pesona Cleopatra is a novel that is written by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy. This book contains two mini novel. The first mini novel is "Pudarnya Pesona Cleopatra". This mini novel is about the man who was blinded by the beauty of Cleopatra and Egyptian women for he had been living in Egypt as a student for about 4 years. He just wanted to marry Egyptian woman. However, his dream about marrying Egyptian woman never came true because his beloved mother asked him to marry her best friend's daughter, Raihana. All of his family said Raihana was a Javanese, beautiful, smart, well-behaved and high-educated woman. His family also said that although Raihana was older than him, Raihana had a baby-faced looking. For the first, he was confused, but his mother convinced him that Raihana would be a best wife for him. With all considerations, finally, he married Raihana.

After he married Raihana, he tried to love his wife. He thought Raihana was a very good wife. She served him well and she filled all his needs meticulously and patiently. However, there was still no love for Raihana after few months he became a husband. The beauty of Cleopatra and Egyptian woman was still in his head. Then, he ignored Raihana. He couldn't live as if he loved Raihana anymore. Raihana was very sad because of her husband's behavior.

The second mini novel is "Setitik Embun Cinta Niyala". This novel told about Niyala who will graduate from university and soon she will be a doctor. She lived with her mother's best friend when she studied in a university in Jakarta. Her mother's best friend had a son. His name was Faiq. Niyala was very close with both of them. Three days before she graduated, she received a mail from her father. Her father admitted he had borrowed a big number of money to Mr.Cosmas and next month he had to return it. However, he did not have money. Thus, he asked Niyala to marry Mr.Cosmas's son. She was really sad and confused. She was hopeless. She hated Mr.Cosmas's son because he was a bad man. She had a terrible memory with him. She tried to avoid the marriage. Then, she asked Faiq to help her.

When I got this novel for the first time, I thought this novel just contained a story about Pudarnya Pesona Cleopatra. I was surprised since knowing that there was another mini novel there. There was nothing that tell about Setitik Embun Cinta Niyala in the cover of the novel. However, the novel is still really amazing. I really get into the stories every time I read it. I think this novel is really good to be read by the reader. There are three things that make this novel good. First, the writer, Habiburrahman, wrote every mini novel well.Every mini novel has its characteristic. He wrote different ending for both stories. He used first person as the point of view for the first mini novel, while in the second mini novel, he used the third person as the point of view. Second, this novel is not only entertaining, but also educating. There are a lot of good things that can reader take from novel. And the last, he also used words that are easy to be understood. The readers will really get into the stories. I recommend this novel to be read by readers.