10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

really heartwarming story about found family, 3.8

Such an interesting story from a prostitute of Istanbul that is found murdered and dumped in a waste bin. It tells the story of people's lives in Istanbul, Tequila Leila and her friends throughout her lives and how a person could only do much before fate and destiny hit you in the face.

Elif Shafak has good intentions: she sees Turkish society through a queer feminist kaleidoscope and points at social injustices. I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of Istanbul that appeal to all the senses. All in all, the plot is a bit flat and I couldn’t connect fully to the characters. Especially the second part is a bit preachy and almost becomes absurd.

"...in the desert of life, the fool travels alone and the wise by caravan." As I'm reading about the title after the fact, evidently it's based on the scientific idea that a person's brain waves have been found to be active up to 10 minutes and 38 seconds past a person's death. The first part of this book embraces that idea as we get to know "Tequila" Leila, a Turkish brothel worker experiencing her last few minutes through flashbacks of her life. We learn about her family, her early years, and other formative events that led her to Istanbul and the brothel she worked at before her unfortunate end. We also learn about five very close friends she makes along the way, and also learn their backstories that led them to Leila. The second part of the book focuses on these five friends and how they come to terms(?) with the death of their friend. This book was cruising for a solid four star review in the first part. I fell in love with the imagery presented to us by the author, and was incredibly invested in learning more about Leila and who she was. Her story was a sad one, but I loved how strong she seemed in the face of everything that happened to her. Then we hit the second part, and suddenly the tone of the book shifts abruptly to something more macabre humor as the friends undertake this crazy scheme to honor their dead friend. I appreciate the look at Leila's close friends and how they come to terms with her death, but I felt like the story that this introspection was hung on fell off the rails hard. So, in summary, great start, weirdly absurd end that I felt was tonally off from the rest of the book.

3,5.

I loved the various characters in this one. Each of them was unique and different in its own way. I just got bored a bit by the end, maybe it was longer than I expected. Definitely in love with Leila.

Another wonderful tale by Elif Shafak, in my favorite city of Istanbul. She always weaves messages about society and culture in her stories which make them more interesting. The story meanders through Galata (where I lived briefly), Pera, Kilyos etc. all familiar places, taking me down a nostalgic trip. Any resident of Istanbul would understand why the city connects with you.

Actual rating: 3.5*

This book is so evocative and elegant, following the interweaving lives of various people to provide commentary on sex workers, found family, survival and personal strength. Beautiful.

This is officially the worst book of my life. Ending the decade on a real high note here.

Great story, sometimes a bit thrown off by the use of 'foreign' words which were not translated or explained in the story (but were added in a glossary at the end though)

Wat een prachtig boek. Ik heb na het lezen het gevoel dat ik alle personages goed ken, alsof ik er bij was. De schrijfster wist heel goed de sfeer van Istanbul te creeëren voor de lezer. Aanrader!

What a magical fantastically well written book about the failure of family and the strength of friendships. Must read

And now I'd love to do some cemeteries tourism!

A touching and beautifully written novel that depicts the close friendships between a group of outsiders, which captures the colours and flavours of Istanbul, and political and social change.

“Did the dead remember the past, and, if so, which parts of it, and in what order? How could the mind condense an entire life into the time it took to boil a kettle?” Shafak writes a compelling story with the concept that brain activity persists in people for a short while after physical death. The book is rich in so many themes; religion, death, politics, female empowerment, revolution. It was a brutally honest depiction of trauma and violence that women face in a patriarchal and religious society. Leila’s world was indeed strange, in a post-War Turkish setting, which practiced conservative customs under a niqab and celebrated liberalism in revealing frocks. It begins with Leila’s death and the chapters that follow encompass a countdown of minutes and seconds till Leila’s soul leaves her body. Each minute that passes by is sparked by a smell or flavour; lemon, sugar, cardamom coffee, chocolate, sulphuric acid – all of which indicate a turning point in Leila’s life. Through this, we also learn of the people in her life; her parents, her brother, her madam, her lover, and her most cherished friends. The structure of the story is ingenious; it’s divided into three parts: starting with the mind, where Leila takes us through her memories, then the body, moving forward from her death to how she is treated as an outcast even in death, and then the soul, which is free at last once Leila’s friends give her a burial neither her family nor the State would provide. The story dedicates, in short intermissions, a backstory into each of her friends’ lives and how they came to Istanbul and enter Leila’s life. The story celebrates these misfits that Leila loves and holds dear. One raised by a single mother, one of Muslim faith but is marginalized because of her dwarfism, one of Somalian descent born of an interracial marriage, one who escaped an abusive marriage and one whose gender identity is different from that assigned at birth. Shafak’s writing is impeccable, and she has a knack for weaving stories within stories. Some may argue that some characters were left unevenly developed but I say, not only does the author give a voice to different personalities living different hardships, but how she gives life to Leila in those stories and yet sustains her as the nexus of the story is what makes Shafak a great author. This is easily one of my favourite reads!

The title is the amount of time remaining in the life of Tequila Leila, a sex worker murdered and dumped in Istanbul. It's a hard-hitting beginning to a truly brilliant book. In part one, Leila's waning consciousness recalls her life while part two deals with the aftermath of her death, as her friends try to claim her body. It's a structure that allows Leila to be fully realised, on her own terms as well as those who knew her in all the complexity and contradiction that this throws up. It makes Leila startlingly human and presents death, especially violent death, in a very different narrative structure. There's a little sentimentality, a little two much purple prose and, unfortunately, the motley crew of supporting characters are not given the same depth as Leila. Nevertheless, there are strokes of genius in the writing and it is worth letting this take precedence over the flaws.

Ono kad se knjiga završi, a ostalo još sto strana do kraja.

Elif Shafak's storytelling and her ability to come up with such a unique plot is truly mind-blowing. While the story, once you read it, seems familiar, you might have never read a point of view based on a character such as Leila and her friends. At least I never have. Yes, I have heard about countless Leilas' in my life, but I have never looked at life through their eyes. And never even thought of it from their perspective, so it was truly a breath of fresh air. I loved Leila's character and most of her friends. I didn't like some of them as humans, but I did enjoy their individuality as a reader. Another thing that I really liked about the book was the author's effort to portray the different views that exist within the Muslim community. The thing that threw me off was the ending. In my opinion, everything until half of part two was smooth, and then things just started going up and down. It turned out from what you would expect from a group of grieving friends into this adventure that I could never imagine being part of. But I guess if there was someone as wholesome and wonderful as Leila in my life, someone who was ready to do anything for her friends, then perhaps I would be ready to do anything for them too.

Wow, what a stunning, beautifully written book.

Such a beautiflul, bittersweet, melancholic, but also with a little drop of hope (which we find in closeness of our friends, family of our choice) story.

Gorgeous prose but still recovering because this is just so sad and true.

Like I'm just back from Istanbul and feel like I've grown up with the protagonist. How hard it might have been if you were never allowed to call Mumma to your own mother. Leila.. I'm stuck there with you and every temperament I see come alive. You left me with lots of quests which I believe only you could answer. As you're no more I find it completely pointless keeping my quests alive. I'm broke.

Another beautiful gem by Elif Shafak. Such an emotional story, I loved it!