Hot tip: If you put a transgender person in your novel this year, you too are probably longlisted for the 2019 Booker. I’m SO GLAD this is over. Shudder.

I’m going to Turkey next year, so I was eager to read this book. There were (a rare few) good aspects of the book dealing with the culture, traditions and personality of Turkey. I also enjoyed Shafak’s take on “your life flashing before your eyes”. It was a great concept, poor execution.

This book was like The Five-People You Meet in Heaven (somebody MADE me read it) only these are Five-Stereotypes You Meet in a Gutter in Istanbul. The story was trite. (SPOILER) There have been many books dealing with sexual abuse of a minor that have been done well. Lolita, and The End of Alice come to mind. Though that’s not the main thread of this story, it certainly precipitated the events of the story. (END SPOILER). Books dealing with abuse can be difficult to read, but provide outstanding reader experiences. This book used it as a crutch. Tequila Lelia may as well have been described as a hooker with a heart of gold.

The “friends” were nothing but words on a page.

Really disappointed by the whole thing.

I finished this book a few days ago....( haven’t read any reviews yet)....and it’s unusual for me to wait 3 days before writing a review.
Have you eve felt you have so much to say - you don’t know whet to begin?
Ha...perhaps there’s a club for people like us?

Well, I’m on vacation - aware of holiday-distractions - but this is a book I’d love to engage with others to discuss.

Perhaps if bang my head against the wall - the right words at the right time would flow out of me....

For starters - Elif Shafak - the Turkish novelist - who lives in London today - an advocate of women’s equality and freedom - is becoming one of my favorite female novelist.
A few months ago I read that the Turkish government launched investigations into writers of fiction- including Elif Shafak for writing about sexual violence in turkey.... threatening free speech.
So? I can’t help but wonder what the Turkish government thinks of this book. Is this book controversial- too?
I think perhaps so.
But... it’s a significant novel - filled with facts and fiction — vibrantly imagined.... and keeps the reader just a little off balance until the end.

We take a journey with a dying prostitute- Tequila Leila - ( a murdered - narrator who is lying in a rubbish bin)... who had lived on the streets in Istanbul where they harbored the oldest licensed brothels.
Throughout the novel are reoccurring themes about women’s right and political stiflings.

The crafting of storytelling is very unique.
“Two minutes after her heart had stopped beating, Leila’s mind recalled two contrasting tastes: lemon and sugar”.

Leila saw herself as a six-year old child- an only child... lonely, restless, Always a little distracted. Her biological mother- Binnaz,- was one of nine siblings..... grew up in a poor village- and was often reminded by her husband, Haroun, that she came from nothing. All the women were made to feel like nothing from Haroun.

Leila had a complicated childhood and family....with two mothers...( as if that wasn’t complicated enough), her father - Haroun/ Baba felt the responsibilities of marriage, sex, and fatherhood was all too complicated. He wanted to just be done with it all.....especially after a younger brother, Tarkan, was born with Down syndrome. Leila was 7 years of age when Tarkan was born. Baba, disappointed and angry to have a son with Down syndrome, he took his frustrations out on Leila.

Leila grows up - leaves home - bolts from home - hoping Istanbul will fulfill her dreams of a better life.
But.... it wasn’t...
The brutal realities & cruelties reveal themselves through the background and help from five of Leila’s close friends. The five friends have their background stories too.

“Three minutes had passed since Leila’s heart had stopped, and now she remembered cardamom coffee. A taste for ever associated in her mind with the street of brothels in Istanbul”.

“Four minutes after her heart had stopped beating, a fleeting memory surfaced in Leila’s mind, bringing with it I smell and taste of watermelon”.

“Five minutes after her heart had stopped beating, Leila we called her brothers birth. A memory that carries with it the taste and smell of spiced goat stew - cumin, fennel, seeds, cloves, onions, tomatoes, tail fat, and goat’s meat”.

“Six minutes after her heart had stopped beating, Leila pulled from her archive the smell of a wood burning stove.

“Seven minutes ....
As Leila’s brain fought on, she remembered the taste of soil-dry chalky, bitter”.

“Eight minutes had gone by, and the next memory that Leila pulled from her archive was the smell of sulphuric acid”.

“Nine minutes...
The taste of chocolate bonbons with surprise fillings inside — caramel, cherry paste, hazelnut praline...”.

“Ten minutes....
As time ticked away, Leila’s mind happily we collected the taste of her favorite street food: deep fried mussels- flour, egg yolks, bicarbonate of soda, pepper, salt, and mussels fresh from the Black Sea”.

“Ten minutes Twenty Seconds....
In the final seconds before her brain completely shut down, Leila remembered a wedding cake-thee tired, all white, layered with buttercream icing”.

“Ten minutes and Thirty Seconds...
In the final seconds before her brain surrendered, Tequila Leila recalled The taste of a single malt whiskey. It was the last thing that had passed her lips and the night she died”.

The final scene is powerful .....
Elif Shafak is a phenomenal storyteller.
This isn’t a book one forgets!

I had one small problem - which I’m sure will get corrected. My early copy of the ebook had many Kindle-typing mis-spelled words - several were hard to figure out what they were.
However... this novel is pulsing with thought & life .....narrated by an extraordinary dying protagonist.

Thank You Netgalley, Bloomsbury Publishing, and the wonderful Elif Shafak

A sex worker in Istanbul has been murdered, and as her brain releases her life, the reader is transported to specific memories and stories. Her life is revealed alongside five close friends (like a Turkish cast of Rent) who play a bigger role in the second half of the story.

This is on the Man Booker Prize longlist for 2019, but I must say it isn't the best book I've read by this author. Still it is quite readable and is based on an interesting structure.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 3019, this novel’s US publication date is December 3.

This novel has an original structure. Tequila Leila, a prostitute in Istanbul, has been murdered and left in a trash can. But even after her death, her brain continues to function for 10 minutes and 38 seconds. And through those minutes, the reader learns her history: from birth to death, including how she ended up as a prostitute in Istanbul. We meet her husband, and the 5 best friends of her life—and we learn about each of them and how she met each one, from the 60s to the early 80s. Childhood friend, immigrant prostitute, transvestite, nightclub singer, woman with dwarfism. All on the fringes of Istanbul life, for a variety of reasons.

This is a fascinating set of characters, and they come together for Leila. I was hoping to see her murder solved, though, as characters were introduced who had the clues. Instead we get a madcap caper of her friends giving her the sendoff she wanted. The transitions felt awkward (and the final transition felt more unbelievable than the caper itself). I enjoyed the portrait of life in Istanbul—based in the city’s geography and historically accurate, this novel felt very believable. And it made me crave Turkish street food. I don’t think this will make the shortlist, but I am terrible with Booker predictions.

There is a lot to admire in this portrait of an Istanbul prostitute, her friends, her untimely murder, and the aftermath of her existence. However, I never really connected with the material, the characters, nor the story, or the way it was told. The first 2/3rds is basically a straightforward account of Tequila Leila's life, broken by the interpolation of brief vignettes of the lives of her five friends. It's given something of a novel twist in that it is supposedly remembrances flashing through her brain as it slowly dies, which gives the work its title. But aside from that hook, there isn't much that is novel or different - there are a few set pieces that resonate, but it pretty much follows the same tropes as any other book about a downtrodden whore, although the exotic setting does provide some interest.

The final third abruptly changes focus and format, and becomes the story of the five friends' efforts to relocate Leila's body from a pauper's grave to a more suitable final resting place. I'm not convinced this section was necessary or warranted, and seemed from a different book altogether. I had some other quibbles - the prose itself never elevates much from the pedestrian, and there are some clunky passages which can be excused by English not being the author's first language - indeed, some of it reads like a stilted translation.

I can see why it got tagged for a Booker nomination, however, since it does deal with some rather harrowing subject matter, but I doubt it'll move forward onto the short list.

My sincere thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for the eBook ARC, in exchange for this honest review.