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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I listened to this book on audiobook on a long drive. The story is about an Turkish woman who lives in Berlin to study writing. When her thesis is rejected, she has to re-examine her life. Should she return to her bankrupt family or marry her Swedish boyfriend. Her writing reminds me a lot of Elif Bautman if Elif did ketamine.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
DNF
Slow, boring, keep waiting for a hook… what’s the point? Why are you telling me this?
Slow, boring, keep waiting for a hook… what’s the point? Why are you telling me this?
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the best parts of the idiot, convenience store woman, and writers and lovers all wrapped up in diary entries.
Loved this. Makes me think of other writers I love--Elif Batuman, Sheila Heti.
I think of all three now as comprising this semi-movement of auto-fiction-inspired, anti-dramatic novelists who write books that capture the actual structure of young people's lives, especially young women's. Feels like the characters in these books have a different kind of agency than people are used to in more white/eurocentric/male/patriarchal-normative books, where people run around trying to get stuff and wile out when they don't. These books are more about reacting to the people and events around you, waiting for things to happen to you, trying to get things and failing, seeing if things will work themselves out, meanwhile perceiving everything that's happening to you and thinking about it, interpreting it... (laying it all out like that it sounds kind of Proust-y too)
Anyway, it all resonates with me and this book was so much more real and effortless to read than anything I've picked up in a while.
I think of all three now as comprising this semi-movement of auto-fiction-inspired, anti-dramatic novelists who write books that capture the actual structure of young people's lives, especially young women's. Feels like the characters in these books have a different kind of agency than people are used to in more white/eurocentric/male/patriarchal-normative books, where people run around trying to get stuff and wile out when they don't. These books are more about reacting to the people and events around you, waiting for things to happen to you, trying to get things and failing, seeing if things will work themselves out, meanwhile perceiving everything that's happening to you and thinking about it, interpreting it... (laying it all out like that it sounds kind of Proust-y too)
Anyway, it all resonates with me and this book was so much more real and effortless to read than anything I've picked up in a while.
What a brilliant debut! This book resonated with me on so many levels it’s almost unreal, it brings back so many memories!
Leyla is a young Turkish aspiring writer currently living in Berlin. She has just finished her studies but somehow failed her thesis and is now in a limbo awaiting the results of the appeal and at the same time fighting the German immigration system. She is still on a student visa, only allowed to work twenty hours a week. She gets a job as a cleaner in a hostel and spends most of her free time doing drugs and having sex with strangers (before you ask, these are not the parts that bring back memories
Leyla is a young Turkish aspiring writer currently living in Berlin. She has just finished her studies but somehow failed her thesis and is now in a limbo awaiting the results of the appeal and at the same time fighting the German immigration system. She is still on a student visa, only allowed to work twenty hours a week. She gets a job as a cleaner in a hostel and spends most of her free time doing drugs and having sex with strangers (before you ask, these are not the parts that bring back memories
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective