At one point the narrator sort of identifies herself as having 'diarrhea of the mouth'. I really found that to be accurate. The narrator is intentionally oblique, haphazard and, honestly, just frustrating and exhausting. I read enough of this to know it is not for me.

I'm sure there is a lovely story in here, but life is too short to be batted about in all of this mad muttering to find it.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy of The Girl in the Tree a debut English translation by Turkish author Sebnem Isiguzel. A young woman climbs high into the trees in a Istanbul park to escape her tragic world. She intends to stay there for the rest of her life and curls up into the safety of a stork's nest. She starts to think about her life, her relationships with her mother, aunts and grandmother. Parts of their lives come to light as she remembers and she realizes the tragedies and loss they had endured. As she shelters in the trees a young man befriends her and they share their stories. Quickly they are bonded and fall in love. Can the Girl in the Tree climb down and join the world again for her love? This is a heartbreaking, touching story with a bit of humor with will bring you to tears and laugh thought.

A very interesting read about the inner battles of a young girl with glimpses of recent Turkish history. I would recommend it to any of my students because I think they could relate with the main character. She feels an outcast in a world that she does not want to be part of so she decides to go on exile. To do that, she climbs up a tree and refuses to come down. The potential that this novel has for further study is phenomenal and I would say it is a good one to explore during the last part of High School.

E-ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book is my first experience in reading a Turkish literature translation. And I should say that I had a good experience in reading this book.

The narrator of this book was a girl who thought that she could live in a tree. The narrator introduces herself as ‘The Girl in the Tree’ to the readers as she doesn’t want to use her name.

This girl believes that the world is made up of stories and we all are other people’s stories. She narrates her life through the stories of other people in her life. First few chapters of the book were confusing. But the story picks up its pace after a few chapters.

As I am not a native Turkish speaker, I hope that the translation did its justice to the original book. The book is full of dynamic women who face life in their own style. The women of this book are enigmatic and inspiring.

The writing style was immaculate which is an added bonus. Also, I like the way the story progresses and ends.

I do have a few things bothering about this book.

Why does a girl have to live in a tree? Is there no other way to escape from reality?
What did she learn from the stories of other women in her life?
The character development is absent or I couldn’t sense it.
The girl in the tree is distracted, confused, ingrate and repeating the things again and again and again. After a point of time, I can’t cope with her.
The beginning of the book is vague and confusing.
Apart from these, this book is a pretty good read which has a lot of women and talks about the importance of mental health. At last, I fell in love with this book which is unexpected. I love this book because it is challenging to read. I learned many new words. I also got an insight into Turkish culture ( a little though).

My Recommendation:
I would recommend this book for a hardcore literature fan or to the people who like to read challenging books.

My Rating:
Character development-3/5
Plot development-3/5
Quality of writing-5/5
Pace of the story-3.5/5
Thought Provoking-4/5
Overall-3.5/5

This was hard. I found the unique writing style interesting. And I expected to be compelled by the story. But it just never got there for me. Maybe it just didn't match up. I struggled to get through the book and just surprisingly did not feel strongly about the character.

This was a heart-wrenching look into the life of a teenage girl growing up in Turkey. Her writing is brutally honest and will make you want to dig deeper into what is happening in the world around you.

This book caught my eye because of the beautiful cover and the concept. The writing style although poetic at times reminded me of a older teen who is spewing out every word in her mind and it didn't really give my mind a chance to rest and take it all in. It starts with her climbing a tree and you don't know why. As she tells us her story and admits that she is a writer/storyteller and fabricates her story sometimes to make it more interesting so I don't know what to believe. Some of the story is pretty horrific, but not surprising based on what we've seen reported happening in war-torn countries. For me, it wasn't a book about a lot of hope, but more saying "Screw it, I'm done with this world." So in that case, I can empathize with her.

From the cover to the blurb, The Girl in the Tree looked promising. I was intrigued and wanted to start reading it right away. However, after about halfway in the first chapter, I realized that the story was all over the place. The narration took a lot of turns that it was hard for me to follow the protagonist's main point.

I put the book down and gave it another chance the next day. Nothing changed. I still felt lost as the narrative branched into a lot of mini-stories, that is why I decided not to finish it. I'm not sure if it was the translation that made it weird and confusing, or not. This one just did not appeal to me as I was reading along and I felt like I was only dragging myself page after page.

I would still recommend this book though. I did not like it but it was not terrible. Other readers might enjoy the zigzagging turn of events and might give it more chance than I did.

I chose this book to read because I was attracted to the cover and the description sounded interesting.

A girl who one day has had enough and decides to go live in a tree. Surprisingly she makes a friend who spots her in the tree. The story flashbacks in between past as we try to find out why she is in the tree,

Unfortunately I could not get on with this book. I found the main characters waffles a lot and repeats herself a lot. The chapters very long. It seems to take a long time to get to the point. Some of the content I don't even think needs to be there as it is things we do not need to know.

However this book does have a lot of potential. Once the waffle and repetitive words are out the way. The flashbacks of her life are lovely to read. We find out about her family and what life was like growing up - some of it sad due to bombings and other things.

I tried to read on and finish this book but I struggled a lot as it was hard to get into.

I tried multiple times to read this and just could not finish it. I could not engage with it. Could not get into. Could not enjoy it. Perhaps it was the translation? What is the point of this book at all? The premise drew me in, but failed to deliver.

The girl in the tree is a very serious, heavy going book. It is definitely not a light summers beach read. However it is so beautifully well written, And highly enjoyable.

A marvelous book. This literary novel is masterfully written. A young woman climbs up a tree in an Istanbul park to stay, seemingly because she's upset that Amy Winehouse has died. Little by little, you discover that much, much more has happened to upset this young woman.

Does she come down? No spoilers, but the book has some interesting twists at the end. I still don't know exactly what happened, but I'm happily imagining several scenarios. The other main character is a young man who works in a hotel immediately adjacent to the tree where our protagonist lives in a stork's nest. His story is quite interesting as well. Since the protagonist is a novelist, she may be an "unreliable narrator," but I'm not sure!

Written in stream of consciousness, this novel is brilliant. Highly recommended for those who like more literary novels. Also highly recommended for high school students; it conveys what it's like to live in a turbulent culture.

Simply not a book made for me...

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I'm sorry- I could not finish this book. I tried reading it twice different times and read a couple chapters each time, but continued to find myself totally bored and disinterested. I still don't know why we are hearing about this girl in the tree who lost at some essay contest - what are we supposed to be learning or connecting to in her story? What bothered me most though, was how much we heard about Amy Winehouse. I appreciate her music and understand she has a tragic story- but why must we constantly talk about her and rehash her death over and over again...
The story seemed forced and obnoxious to me. I'm sure others will read and it get it, but I'm done trying..

I have tried several times to read this book and in all good conscience I cannot review it as I could not continue to read it and get past the first 40 pages. The author herself describes her writing as “puking up everything in inside her” and that’s the exact sense I get, her writing is aimless, disjointed and difficult to read. I will not be publicly reviewing this book. Based on the very little I have read I give the book a rating of 1 below. I would like to believe that if one persevered past the initial ramblings it would improve but I cannot bring myself to continue reading it, even if only to find out why she is in a tree!

The short sentences are crisp and straightforward. However, I found the story a little hard to get into for me at this time. I do think I'm likely to give this another try as I do think the story would be interesting, but after about two chapters I just couldn't keep attention on the story.

This is a gripping read like nothing I've ever read before. This novel explores the protagonist's place in modern Turkey as a stream of consciousness - her thoughts jump around from topic to topic and from different times and places.

I felt very attached to The Girl in the Tree despite the fact that the reader cannot trust the narrator - we can never really be sure what is true, what is her imagination and what is a dream: there are parts in which you wonder if you are experiencing the effects of her nervous breakdown. Yet she is a complex and compelling person who really felt alive to me.

I can't recommend this enough. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a novel unlike anything else I have read before. It had moments of absolute beauty and poetry. However I am having a really hard time rating this. Despite the moments that I was completely drawn in for pages at a time, I found just as many moments where I almost gave up on the book. While some of the disjointed and confused prose worked extremely well to create a sense of chaos and almost despair, I found it pulled me out of the book in many places. The main character’s commentary on the writing style just left me somewhat annoyed when she would announce for the umpteenth time that she was repeating herself and that she was not going to tell us this or that. I understand why it was done, and in some ways it worked well, but about half of the book I just found it tedious.

I am sure I would be able to pick out different things if I had a better concept of the country during this time period, but at the same time, I think that it one thing this novel does well. I feel like I understand, if not the exact events, at least the mood and atmosphere of the time extremely well. It was much easier to grasp much of it though he lens of these strong female characters.

I think I would read more of the work of Sebnem Isigüzel, as I was genuinely touched by many parts of this book. I am happy I did not give up on it, but I can’t claim it as one of my favorites either.

The language in this translated work of Şebnem Işigüzel is so flowing, you feel each word and what they mean to the main character as she tells the reader the story of the women (+ her father) in her life and how their actions formed her as a person and how all this made her leave life in the ground.

It's powerful, yet youthful. I don't really know for which age group this is supposed to be aimed towards: somehow it feels too "deep" for a YA, too poetic in a way, even though the reader follow the thoughts and story of a teenage girl.

My knowledge of current (more or less) events in Turkey is not really up to date more than that the country is trying, once more, to homogenise its population and suppress certain political views, and I feel like Işigüzel did add elements of this, woven into the story, both in the story about The Girl in the Tree's grandmother and the present story about the aunt. I feel like this sort of storytelling is important in a Euroasia where the thought of the dangerous other is - unfortunately - on the rise.

3.5 stars:

'The Girl in the Tree' is wholly unique to anything I’ve read before. Şebnem İşigüzel’s circuitous approach to storytelling is quite effective in conveying the depths of trauma, loss, love, and mental illness. İşigüzel also provides a stirring narrative of the history of Turkey itself, and how the shifts of governmental control and in public opinion have shaped the lives of the female characters in life-altering ways.

There are moments that are completely rapturous and captivating, and moments where the writing is dense and difficult to navigate. I don’t know if this is due to the fact that this is a translated novel; given the distinctive narrative style, I wish I could read this book in its native tongue. I found the denouement to be dissatisfying, but I think that’s the point. It’s powerful, and speaks to the world that the author has adeptly created. All criticisms aside, I think this is an important work that deserves to be read. We need more voices like Şebnem İşigüzel.

**Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.**