I think this book had a lot of potential and I enjoyed the story, overall. I think the summary is a little misleading - the story is not really a retelling of Romeo and Juliet but rather the life, times, and loves of a group of people in a performing arts school in Istanbul.

First, I liked how the narrator tells the story. It reads like a screenplay, helping you picture the entire scene. The writing style was beautiful, very artistic and complemented the performance art environment within the story. I like how descriptive the passages are when discussing the city itself, its restaurants, bars, and street scenes. It introduced the different culture that many of the American characters are weaving their way through.

The main issue I had with this book was the large number of characters. So many characters not only made it hard to remember everyone and their backstories, but also to invest in most stories and people. Many characters lacked depth and seemed unnecessary, resulting in simply taking time away from more substantial ones. The substantial ones, however, were given a great show of emotion, heart and turmoil, and became very realistic. You are able to grab hold of a few characters and cheer them on their journey. Unfortunately, the narrator also jumps around very quickly from one character story to another, sometimes after one or two sentences. It lost its flow and caused confusion at times when I couldn't figure out when we made the change.

I would have liked more dialogue and some interaction between other characters, rather than sticking to individual couples. And I wish the final performance was given more time and detail. The idea of the performance itself was the main reason I was interested in the book. The entire story leads up to this one performance which was briefly summarized and quickly ended. Lastly, I felt like all but one character got a satisfying ending, which was a bit disappointing. I don't agree that everyone should have their happy ending either, but the ending was a little depressing. Which is funny considering Michael wanted to change the ending of the play to a happy one because he didn't want a tragic, depressing ending.

Still, the story is written beautifully and I did enjoy it. Kudos to Durso for his great, poetic writing style. I do think this is an interesting read with a great take on cultural differences, diversity, performance art, passion, and love.

I had to give myself a few days between finishing Istanbul Days, Istanbul Nights and writing up my review, mostly because I couldn't quite decide what I thought about it. Some aspects I really enjoyed, while others frustrated me slightly.

Starting with the positives, I definitely enjoyed the writing style! The prose was very well thought out, at times feeling almost like poetry. It is quite clear that every word has been thought through, and nothing was left to chance. It was really easy to get lost inside this very colourful canvas, I just kept turning the pages, one after the other, without really realising how much I was reading in a single session.

At the same time, this book is very original and peculiar in its narration. We follow a varied set of characters, all in some way related to a college in Istanbul, their stories seamlessly blending one into the other. I'm not sure whether this was due just to the formatting of the arc I had, and so may not be an issue in the final version, but it was at times incredibly difficult to keep up with the cast: a few times, I struggled in understanding whom we were talking about, mostly because I couldn't always tell when a certain character's part had finished and a new one started. This was quite annoying, and it meant that I had to go back and reread certain passages to understand who was doing what.

Speaking of characters, they are another aspect I had a sort of love/hate relationship with. I enjoyed the diversity of the cast, and I did think that, for the space each of them was granted, we got quite a good glimpse of their personalities, backgrounds and feelings. Having such a big cast, however, also meant that each of them had very limited time for growth and development. As a result, a good number of characters actually felt only like "extras" there for background and number, but not really making any significant contributions; and while some evolved significantly as the story progressed, others seemed to only represent a "type", and they carried out that role for the whole book.

Perhaps the main character, and the most developed one, is the city of Istanbul itself. We are exposed to the city during the days and nights of a whole academic year, learning every person's favourite spots, and the immense diversity of this city between two continents. After reading this book, I definitely feel like visiting Istanbul. Also, I craved Turkish food ALL. THE. TIME. There is a lot of cooking and eating going on here, and the descriptions of the meals are just perfect.

I personally found the blurb to be slightly misleading, and struggled to see this book as a modern retelling of Romeo & Juliet. Sure, that is the plot device used to bring characters together, as they work on exactly this kind of play for their college, but I failed to see it in the bigger picture. Sure, there are many unlucky romances, but that didn't exactly justify the comparison for me. This is more a book on life, with its joys and disappointments, some happy endings and some not-so-happy ones, but mostly the need to challenge ourselves, follow our dreams and ensure we make some good friends along the way to share all our most important moments with.

Definitely a solid read, but one that had just one too many issues to make it perfect for me. You'll probably like this book if you enjoy unconventional storytelling and don't need to get too attached to the characters in order to feel invested in their story. Make sure you have easy access to a Turkish restaurant or a friend with great cooking skills throughout, otherwise you might endure unnecessary suffering!