A review by livesinthetub
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

3.0

book #28 of 2021: The Bastard of Istanbul (pub. 2007) by Élif Shafak (Turkish) this is a well-handled story of ethnic, Armenian and Turkish, and generational cruelty and resilience. this author is adept at making each character, even the minor ones, rounded and believable. not every mystery gets resolved, but the crucial ones do. it’s difficult to tell, when listening to audiobooks, if pieces you felt were missing were your failure in listening or the author not connecting the dots, esp when there are so many threads and related characters, though several mysteries were definitely left unaddressed by the author. that said, I prefer a more nuanced story than a morality tale, where everything is spelled out. I look forward to more novels by this author: this was the third of hers that I’ve read.