A review by snoakes7001
Reckless by Hasan Ali Toptas

2.0

This is a rarity - a book I very nearly gave up on. The first two chapters are an interminable dream sequence that don't appear to have any bearing on the rest of the book. Once you get past these and the story proper starts it's OK, but nothing special. The majority is about the main character's military service - a mix of skirmishes with smugglers and senseless brutality from the commanding officers. I just don't understand why you would inflict those first two chapters on your readers. Another reviewer on here suggests that if you re-read the first chapter once you've finished then you start to make sense of what the author is trying to achieve, but it's so dull I can't imagine anyone bothering to do that.
Once again I've read a translated book and am left wondering if something is lost in translation. Not that I think the translation is bad - I'm woefully underqualified to comment, but whether something culturally is lost on me. If you look at the other reviews for this, those in Turkish almost all give the book a high score whereas those written in English almost all are variations on a theme of "???". And he IS supposed to be one of Turkey's leading authors. Not one for me though I'm afraid.