A review by whitmc
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

1.0

Ugh. I wanted to love this book SO BADLY. The back cover starts "Armenian American woman living in San Francisco . . . " Hello, that's me. And the author was nearly imprisoned in Turkey for writing the book, which made it an excellent first candidate for my March Women Author's focus. But wow...this was just so, so bad. About halfway through I realized the disjointed storylines were not going to come together, they would remain hard to follow and disjointed. I also realized I wouldn't like any of the characters, which was true. What I didn't realize halfway through was that it would just get worse, and there is a twist at the end that was so unnecessarily disgusting, I nearly threw the book at the wall. And by the time you learn the mysterious link between the two young women the story is about, you are so weary of the characters, you no longer care. And there are piles of loose ends--like what about the main guy from the Armenian message board that the main character had a crush on? And the Cartoonist in the cafe? All loose ends!

So not for me. I feel bad writing such a rant about a book that really does an amazing attempt to bring attention to the dichotomy between Armenians who are still feeling the pain of the genocide generations later, and modern Turks who are looking forward, not backward. In that aspect, Shafak made a really good attempt. I just wish it was done with better writing and focus.