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A review by illiteratewench
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak
4.25
I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, but I really enjoyed Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. I really appreciated the themes of friendship and found family. As someone who has a negative and strained relationship with family, I was able to relate to this more than, say, books like Pachinko that focus on biological family.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World focuses on Leila, a recently murdered prostitute. The title comes from a study that found brain activity 10 minutes 38 seconds after a body was declared dead, leaving Shafak to explore what might be happening in the brain in that time as the body dies. This makes the book a twist on the "life flashing before my eyes before death" troupe, as Part I of the book follows Leila as she looks back on her life and the five dearest friends she held. When each friend is introduced, we get a chapter following them, making this a kaleidoscopic sort of book. For me, this really worked to paint a realistic picture of a time and place otherwise foreign to me. Especially by following people on the margins of society (sex workers, trans characters, disabled characters), I felt like I could really understand the culture of Istanbul of the time. I also appreciate the real historical events depicted.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World focuses on Leila, a recently murdered prostitute. The title comes from a study that found brain activity 10 minutes 38 seconds after a body was declared dead, leaving Shafak to explore what might be happening in the brain in that time as the body dies. This makes the book a twist on the "life flashing before my eyes before death" troupe, as Part I of the book follows Leila as she looks back on her life and the five dearest friends she held. When each friend is introduced, we get a chapter following them, making this a kaleidoscopic sort of book. For me, this really worked to paint a realistic picture of a time and place otherwise foreign to me. Especially by following people on the margins of society (sex workers, trans characters, disabled characters), I felt like I could really understand the culture of Istanbul of the time. I also appreciate the real historical events depicted.