A review by linguisticali
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak

reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

I liked the writing, but, as other reviewers have pointed out, this becomes a different book halfway through, which is odd - it felt like the main premise of the book (based on the blurb and title) should have been most of the story, and the rest could have been covered in an epilogue. The second part onwards was interesting at first, but ended up dragging. It was nice to see some joy and hopefulness in the midst of the relentless tragedy, but so much of it was only really clear after her death. 

It felt like the book was leaning into the idea of sex work as inherently tragic, and I was also uncomfortable with the way the trans character's physicality was constantly foregrounded (her size! her hands! her surgeries! her breasts!).
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