10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

I had never heard of Elif Shafak until this book popped up in my recommendations and now I'm a little irked that it took so long for her work to come to my attention because that was some seriously good writing and I already want more of it.

The characters were fantastic, the story was at times stunningly beautiful and at other times heart breaking. It's listed as being historical fiction with literary fiction as a subgenre but I think this one might appeal more to the literary fiction peeps.

“...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.

My first Elf Shafak book. Easy read and powerful story.

However more importantly, it takes place in the complex city, Istanbul, where I was born. And reading about Istanbul, its different parts and uniqueness I know very well was very nostalgic and enjoyable in a deep way.

I had this very strong feeling of knowing what she was talking about.

I like the friendship story too.