There Are Rivers in the Sky
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including Bloomberg, for a Consensus Score of 12 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedShafak's structure is ambitious to the point of risk: a single drop of water linking King Ashurbanipal's Nineveh, Victorian London, and a present-day Yazidi girl and hydrologist, threaded through the Tigris and the Thames. Critics have been split roughly along a line, those who find the water-as-connective-tissue conceit moving and those who find it strained, with the personified raindrop in particular singled out as an overreach. Where there's more consensus is on the Yazidi thread: reviewers have called the novel's attention to that community's persecution its most substantial achievement.
In the press
“The spotlight on Yazidi culture, and the brutal persecution of this community, is the novel's most unequivocal achievement.”
Michael Donkor, The Guardian
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg | 0.80 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.56 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.56 → 12 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is There Are Rivers in the Sky on?
There Are Rivers in the Sky appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including Bloomberg.
What is its Consensus Score?
There Are Rivers in the Sky has a Consensus Score of 12 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.