Kenan Orhan’s “The Renovation” offers an emotionally intimate glimpse into the life of a caregiver looking after her chronically ill father. The main character, Dilara, is also a Turkish political refugee exiled in Italy.

In this powerful narrative, Dilara discovers that her remodel has gone wildly awry, leaving her with a Turkish prison cell in place of a bathroom. While this premise is absurd and hints at elements of magical realism, it resonated deeply with me. As someone who is chronically ill and has a father battling a fatal illness, I can relate to the feeling that, amid growing authoritarianism in a fraying democracy, a home can sometimes feel like a prison cell.

Throughout the novel, Dilara navigates the challenges of caring for her ailing father and dealing with an absent husband, all while being increasingly drawn to the prison cell. The notion that a cell represents punishment is clear; however, the predictability, comraderie, and limited outside interference it offers could also be perceived as refreshing, leading one to acclimate to it.

This novel delves into memories, which has a feeling of significant importance due to their displacement and the effects of Alzheimer’s. The prose is powerful, emotional, and empathetic. I will be reflecting on this book for a long time to come, and I highly recommend it. Thank you to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gorgeous storytelling - all at once mysterious, moving, and disorienting. Dilara and her husband are renovating their bathroom in their home in Italy. The contractors are increasingly secretive about their work. When they complete it, Dilara is shocked to discover her new bathroom looks just like a notable Turkish prison. At first she is shocked and repulsed, but slowly she finds herself drawn to the other women staying there. At the same time, Dilara is dealing with an absentee husband and a father with dementia.

Thank you very much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

With its fantastical premise and candidly raw emotional core, The Renovation is a powerful literary gem. I’m glad I was drawn in by its outlandish hook—a botched renovation where a residential bathroom inexplicably transforms into a prison cell—judging on the subject matter alone, I might have passed it by as too literary for my taste. The touch of magical realism is seamlessly woven throughout, holding my attention and pulling me into a vulnerable, deeply human character study. More than once, I found myself double-checking to make sure this wasn’t a nonfiction memoir—the protagonist’s journey feels that vivid and real.

The Renovation tackles heavy themes: a parent’s dementia and Türkiye’s political turmoil over the past decade. Despite this, it never feels overwrought; instead, it’s resonant and surprisingly balanced. For someone who doesn’t regularly engage with Türkiye’s politics, it’s also insightful without being overly academic. As an immigrant myself, I found the depiction of complicated feelings toward one’s homeland strikingly accurate—on the surface, countless reasons to leave, yet underneath, an unbreakable emotional longing. Oddly enough, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner kept coming to mind while I was reading this—likely because of its reflective portrayal of a parent–child relationship.

Ultimately, The Renovation was a refreshing change of pace from my usual thriller and horror reads: more introspective and serious, yet still delightfully quirky thanks to its unconventional setup and fluid, unpretentious writing style. There’s so much metaphor and symbolism to unpack that I know this story will stick with me for a long time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A woman discovers that her bathroom has been remodeled into a prison cell—where she is an unlikely inmate—in this surreal novel of exile, grief, memory, and migration.

This book is truly beautiful and I absolutely loved it. Orhan writes with a deep respect for and trust in his reader, which results in this stunningly rich, sincere debut novel. He expertly assumes the voice of the protagonist Dilara, who has fled Turkey for Italy in the face of dictatorship and increasing state repression and violence, with her husband and aging father. We meet her as her long-awaited bathroom renovation is completed by contractors, but in place of the new bathroom she expects to find, the room is now a cell in a Turkish women’s prison. She must navigate this bizarre new reality whilst caring full-time for her father and confronting the ongoing horrors of her motherland.

Dilara is such a well-built and interesting character and I loved spending time with her. I also appreciated the choice of a single narrator, as I felt it allowed me to really connect with her and delve into her life, thoughts and human complexities.

Orhan skillfully blends narratives of illness, care, memory, loss, grief, belonging, home, nation and space into truly gorgeous prose, and we are seamlessly transported across borders and past/present whilst staying fully immersed. There is just so much I loved and I could not stop thinking about the book once I started it and snatched any free moment in my day to return there, and truly wanted to do nothing else until I had finished the book. I feel very lucky to have come across this book and it will certainly stay with me for a long time, and will undoubtedly earn a place in my physical library once it’s published.

If it wasn’t clear, I highly recommend this, especially for those interested in surrealist elements or magical realism, and those who enjoy deeply personal, intricate narratives with a backdrop of real-life political turmoil. A spectacular debut, and I look forward to hearing more from Orhan in the future.

A wholly unique novel that pulled me out of a reading slump. I have so many questions I'd love to ask Orhan--about content, structure, process... He is absolutely brilliant, and this novel moved me a great deal.

Come for absurd premise of a bathroom door in an Italian home opening into a Turkish prison, stay for a heartfelt story about a Turkish expat living in Italy and caring for her aging father as his health declines.

This book will touch the hearts of daddy’s girls of everywhere. The novel captures her reflections on her father’s life, their relationship, and how it changes as her father’s cognitive abilities decline. Anyone who has had to process your parent’s fallibility and mortality will love this book. I also learned a lot about Turkey, which I found interesting.

The plot and prose were so engaging. I felt the prison element was woven in nicely and enriched the story.

Thank you to #netgalley and FSG for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.