Holiday Country is a lyrical, beautifully written coming-of-age novel by newcomer Inci Atrek.
At the core of the book, there are the complicated, complex mother-daughter relationships. Also, the descriptions of the Aegean village and rich cultural references made the book more bearable.
Ada, the main character, is trying to find herself while vacationing in her home away from home, Turkey. The author portrayed her as a very unlikable character with a very twisted sense of right and wrong. She has a very strange way of showing her love for her mother. She makes terrible decisions that have disastrous consequences, but she only realizes that once it's too late.
Despite my strong dislike for Ada, I powered through the story. To be honest, it was mostly out of curiosity, but thankfully the writing was sublime. Otherwise, this would have been another DNF for me.
Lovers of coming-of-age literary fiction might love this one, it wasn't my cup of tea.
I thank Netgalley and Flatiron books for my advanced readers' copy.

Holiday Country is about Ada, a Turkish American 19yo who lives in LA and visits a coastal town in Turkey during summer holidays. As she’s coming of age and trying to figure out how her identity as a part American and part Turkish person fits in both locations, she gets fascinated by an older guy who her mom used to date, which leads to her making a series of bad decisions.

I ended up loving this one, but it wasn’t for the usual reasons. I loved it because Atrek’s writing was gorgeous and because her observations were absolutely spot on and the feeling of nostalgia was really strong. I am very familiar with the long Turkish summer holidays and the tight knit community of summer houses. And much like those holidays, not much happens in the novel. Ada is in her head, desperately trying to figure out who she is and how she fits in, especially when she is visiting Turkey, who she would have been if her mother hadn’t moved to the US. While I found how Ada explores these quite bizarre, it is so easy to romanticize things you only see the best sides of. As a side note I think this may have been the first time I related more to an MC’s mother than the MC themselves and it’s put me in a minor existential crisis.

I also had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook of this one, and I absolutely loved how the narrator Ayse Babahan switched her accent from neutral to a Turkish accent based on dialogue. It’s also a fun way to hear how some of the words are pronounced if you go that route.

Thank you so much to Flatiron for the ARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

The best sort of books can transport you elsewhere and this book certainly did that! Not even 50% of the way through the book, I was looking up places to vacation in Turkey and rental properties in the towns mentioned. I wanted to be there just as Ada was there. I loved this book. Definitely add to your TBR!!

Holiday Country comes out next week on January 9, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!

Back when my summer evenings revolved entirely around the park, my curfew had always been the sunset. I'd watch the horizon from the top of a slide until that thin arc of orange sank into a mainland silhouette. As the halo of light around the islands faded, I would scream goodbye to everyone and everyone would scream goodbye to me and I would race down to the water, veer left, and reach the gates of the villa panting and electric with adrenaline. A second later, my mother would come up behind me, hair dripping wet, back from her evening swim.

What dictated, still dictates, our lives is the movement of the planet, rather than the measurement of that movement. Nobody ever watches the clock.

Ada has grown up in the U.S., the daughter of an American dad and a Turkish mom. She spends every summer at a Turkish beach home community on the Aegean sea with her mom and grandmother. Now 19 years old, this might be the last summer she spends there. I wanted to love this book. I lived in Turkey, speak Turkish, and spent time at beach communities in Turkey. The descriptions in the book are excellent and the push and pull between two cultures is done well. However, the overarching plot/conflict of this book really turned me off from the book.