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ozdensl's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
I loved it - it broke my heart to million pieces
Content Warnings
Graphic: War and Genocide
obscuredbyclouds's review against another edition
3.0
Although the title already says that this is a memoir I still thought it would be a less personal book than it was and more of a political one. As someone who does not know a lot about the Armenian genocide, I'd wished to understand it better. This was not the right book for this purpose, but of course this is hardly Çetins' fault. I have a feeling as someone who isn't from Turkey I can't fully appreciate the importance of a book like this, even though I know that the Armenian genocide is not something that is widely talked about or discussed in the open. My rating is in no way a reflection of what the book stands for, merely how much I enjoyed reading it/what I got out of it.
This is a short, easy to read, heart-felt memoir about the author's grandmother who was born an Christian Armenian and then after the genocide started living as a Turkish muslim woman with a new name and in denial of her past. I felt for her and the author. However, I was left wanting more information. The disjoined style did not really help either. I'd recommend this book if you're particularly interested in this history (and already know the background stuff) or you really love memoirs, otherwise not so much.
This is a short, easy to read, heart-felt memoir about the author's grandmother who was born an Christian Armenian and then after the genocide started living as a Turkish muslim woman with a new name and in denial of her past. I felt for her and the author. However, I was left wanting more information. The disjoined style did not really help either. I'd recommend this book if you're particularly interested in this history (and already know the background stuff) or you really love memoirs, otherwise not so much.
worldlibraries's review
3.0
Maureen Freely says it best, "This book cuts through all the denial and tells the human story of a family." A greater start text on the subject. I would also recommend "Martyred Armenia," by Faiz El-Ghusain. That book can be found for free on Wikipedia. Further editions of this book would be enhanced by a family tree in both Turkish and Armenian.
liralen's review
3.0
Çetin's grandmother was, as far as Çetin knew for most of her life, a Turkish Muslim. It was only when Çetin was an adult and her grandmother nearing her last years that Çetin learned the truth: her grandmother had once had another name, another religion, another family—Armenian Christians. She'd been kidnapped during a death march and raised by her captors as a combination of daughter and servant. As Çetin tells it, her grandmother had more or less come to peace with this, had viewed her captor-father as a good man. What her grandmother still wondered about, though, was the family that had escaped to America.
This is one of those things that...the story is in parts fascinating and definitely important, but, knowing little about Turkey and less about Armenia, I would have needed a lot more context to really understand. This is a translation, and I suspect that most of those capable of reading the original would have at the very least a slightly better chance than I did of understanding all the nuance, but I think I'd have done better starting with a history book and then moving on to this. A lot of this is a secondhand story, which I suppose adds to the disconnected sense I had. Çetin was working only with what she had, though, but it sounds like there's...so much room to unpack so much more. How do you move on from having your entire life and family ripped away from you? How do you move on from the family you can find again not helping you get in contact with the others? These might not be questions Çetin could reasonably answer, but oof.
This is one of those things that...the story is in parts fascinating and definitely important, but, knowing little about Turkey and less about Armenia, I would have needed a lot more context to really understand. This is a translation, and I suspect that most of those capable of reading the original would have at the very least a slightly better chance than I did of understanding all the nuance, but I think I'd have done better starting with a history book and then moving on to this. A lot of this is a secondhand story, which I suppose adds to the disconnected sense I had. Çetin was working only with what she had, though, but it sounds like there's...so much room to unpack so much more. How do you move on from having your entire life and family ripped away from you? How do you move on from the family you can find again not helping you get in contact with the others? These might not be questions Çetin could reasonably answer, but oof.
zzzzh233's review
loved that so much of this was celebration of survivors family, traditions, resilience, passion and joy. their stories/history deserve to be documented and their names spoken beyond the sensationalization (and simultaneous censorship) of genocide