I loved this book. Beautifully written, it conjures up both friendships and the spirit of Istanbul so vividly. I’m looking forward to reading more from Elif Shafak.

The title is the amount of time remaining in the life of Tequila Leila, a sex worker murdered and dumped in Istanbul. It's a hard-hitting beginning to a truly brilliant book. In part one, Leila's waning consciousness recalls her life while part two deals with the aftermath of her death, as her friends try to claim her body. It's a structure that allows Leila to be fully realised, on her own terms as well as those who knew her in all the complexity and contradiction that this throws up. It makes Leila startlingly human and presents death, especially violent death, in a very different narrative structure. There's a little sentimentality, a little two much purple prose and, unfortunately, the motley crew of supporting characters are not given the same depth as Leila. Nevertheless, there are strokes of genius in the writing and it is worth letting this take precedence over the flaws.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading.
This was a very strange and fantastical tale of 5 people who become friends In Istanbul. Leila is the one who dies first at the hands of two men when she becomes their fifth victim. The 10 minutes and 38 Seconds in the title is the time before her thought processes shut down. We are introduced to Leila’s friends in different segments of that time span.
It is a very whimsical and haunting tale of a young woman, who was sent to Istanbul by traffickers and she then lived her life in that city, first as a sex worker, then a wife and then again as a sex worker before she is murdered.
Highly recommended

CW for the book: death, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking
10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World by Elif Shafak unnerved me in a way I wasn't expecting. I react strongly to most books I read because I put myself in the place of the narrator. Sliding into Leila's life, or in the case her death, was a very visceral experience. Imagining being dead, unable to move, but still have thoughts, feelings, memories made me feel quite claustrophobic in a way. I wanted to keep reading though because I really began to care for Leila and her five.
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The story is broken into three parts (Mind, Body, and Soul) with the first part focusing on the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after Leila's death and introducing us to her five friends: Nostalgia Nalan, Sabotage Sinan, Jameelah, Zaynab122, and Hollywood Humeyra. Each plays a significant role in Tequila Leila's life and their friendship with her and eachother is a beautiful aspect of the story. There is also a lot of trauma in Leila's life that is quite hard to read about and definitely something you should prepare for.
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I absolutely loved reading about the neighborhoods I spent so many years eating in, drinking in, and exploring. The sights, sounds and smells were all so familiar. I definitely agree with other reviewers that the contrast between the first part and the following two was a bit jarring. It was wonderfully Turkish at the same time 😊. I really enjoyed this book quite a lot.

I found this an intense and often sad read, but written in beautiful literary style.

The main protagonist recounts the different events of her life after she has died, but , before her consciousness has left her. This interesting viewpoint was fascinating to me but I know that some other the readers could not accept it.

This book never fails to surprise and capture your imagination and i would urge you to read it.

Leila is lying dead in a bin in Istanbul. During the 10 minutes and 38 seconds that it takes for her brain to shutdown she recalls scents, sounds, fragments that take her back to significant moments in her life. Interspersed with these minutes during which Leila's synapses are still firing, we are introduced one-by-one to the five people who became her true friends.

This structure allows Shafak to draw the reader deep into Leila's past, experiencing the moments that moulded her character and influenced the choices she made.

Part two moves from Leila's mind and dying thoughts to her body by focusing on her friends' desperate attempts to gain access to her physical remains to say goodbye and perform rituals to honour her.

Leila's story contains a lot of pain and hardship highlighting the practice of treating women as objects, the behaviour of corrupt and cruel men, sexual abuse, hypocrisy, intolerance and shame. But through choosing her own family made up of friends who are, like her, also on the fringes of society she gains strength, loyalty and love.

There are sad scenes but Shafak has also crafted moments of comic relief such as Leila's friends' madcap behaviour during a midnight visit to a graveyard that ends in a police chase.

I cared for Leila and her friends and enjoyed Shafak's depiction of Istanbul. A great read!

Shafak uses the time the brain (possibly) takes to close down completely to flashback through Leila's memories, from her rural childhood with an increasingly conservative father to life in a brothel in Istanbul. The dramatic political changes in Turkey, as well as life on the outskirts, is beautifully told through Leila's diverse friendships with outsiders. I loved the detail about the history and life of the city, from graveyards to "Hairy Kafka" street.

Told in a series of flashbacks as the protagonist dies, 10minutes 38 seconds... is a simple telling of a difficult life and through that telling reveals a lot about the culture and attitudes of Turkey in the 20th century.

Beautifully written and heart breaking, this is a genuine modern classic.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

A beautiful cover and a slim volume belying the scope of this astonishing story.

Leila has been killed but before she loses consciousness, she has 10 minutes 38 seconds where she relives key moments in her short life.

As her life drains away, we experience something of those moments - the vivid colours, smells, tastes, and also the deep friendships she has enjoyed despite the sad, tragic events.

The humour in this book despite the horror of all that Leila has experienced is amazing. And the final passages where her friends seek to provide a fitting setting for her body is almost another book entirely.

It's a book to reread, and slowly, cherishing each word, sentence, description. Wonderful!

A highly original, thought provoking and enjoyable book. I've never read a book from this perspective before. I'll be sure to read more books by this author

What a book! Its very concept is stunningly original - I never thought I'd read a somewhat realistic piece of literature that has a corpse as its main character! However, this significant detail has not overshadowed the exploration of this woman's identity and did not stop the writer from introducing other fascinating characters who were all flawed, unique and likeable as their life stories felt incredibly real and raw. The plot was intriguing too, I especially adored its pace - it felt neither dragged out nor forced. Throughout the book, I kept being amazed by the writing style - its simultaneous simplicity and complexity, the way Elif Shafak managed to put so much in so little words. The reading experience was very atmospheric, partially because this book's cultural background was so interesting; I loved learning more about Turkey and its history. The author discussed many tabu topics, including religion, sex workers, poverty, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and politics, and for this I applaud her. Overall, I believe that this book should be read by everyone as every reader would find something to take away from it.

My thanks to Penguin Books U.K./Viking for an eARC via NetGalley of Elif Shafak’s ‘10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’ in exchange for an honest review. It was published in June 2019. My apologies for the late feedback.

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'

As each minute of the 10 minutes and 38 seconds pass Leila recalls a memory of her past life including the friendships that she has made and the events that have led to her death. I won’t say more as it really is the kind of novel that I feel is best read without knowing too many details in advance.

Elif Shafak has dedicated the novel “To the women of Istanbul and to the city of Istanbul, which is, and has always been, a she-city.” Indeed, Istanbul comes vividly alive within these pages as a city with a rich cultural history and many sides to its nature.

This is an exquisitely written, heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting novel that explores diverse themes with particular focus upon sexual violence and the lives of people on the fringes of this society.

The nature of family is also examined and Shafak suggests that there are: “two kinds of families in this world: relatives formed the blood family; and friends, the water family. ... While it was true that nothing could take the place of a loving, happy blood family, in the absence of one, a good water family could wash away the hurt and pain collected inside like black soot.” Wise words.

I ultimately feel that my own words are inadequate to describe the power and beauty of this novel; Elif Shafak is an incredible storyteller and I am now eager to read more of her work.

Since its publication it has been shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction and I recently read it as part of a library reading group that annually reads and discusses the shortlisted novels. This powerful novel was our favourite by a big margin.

I initially bought its audiobook edition narrated by Alix Dunmore to compliment my reading of the eARC though once completed and loving it so much I have since purchased its hardback edition.

Very highly recommended.

Lyrical and utterly fascinating - I hadn't read any other Elif Shafak books but always thought they looked interesting. I'll look into the others now...

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read more of Shafak's works. Whilst she chooses an extremely distressing topic, the book was filled with hope, compassion and love and it is for these reasons I could not put it down. Leila and her friends are rejected and forgotten by society and this is the reality of all those who are like her, but by showing their life and engulfing us in these rejected perspectives we see a human side of these marginalised people that is otherwise not granted to them. The writing at the start of the novel was absolutely beautiful and I found myself stopping to rereading sentences to fully consider their weighty meaning and beauty, I found that the writing slowly charged towards the end of the novel but I still enjoyed this book. I am extremely happy to see this book get recognition as it is truly a well constructed and thought out narrative. I highly recommend it.

Leila is a prostitute and she is dead. In the minutes after she is killed her brain starts to shut down but with each minute comes a memory of her life and the people in it. Born in the city of Van Leila is abused and runs away to Istanbul where she naively falls into prostitution. Falling in love with a student she marries but after the death of her husband she returns to the life she understands and which eventually leads to her death. However her friends are determined that she is not forgotten and they endeavour to reclaim her body for burial.
I found this book incredibly hard to engage with at first and then it suddenly took off for me. Leila should be a tragic figure but she isn't and the her life and the life of her friends are used to address large political and social issues in Turkish society. The book is well worth persevering with.

One of the first rules of writing is not to tell a story from the point of view of someone who is dead. But Elif Shafak certainly isn't playing by the rules.

It's a good job she doesn't because otherwise we wouldn't have this fascinating, heartwarming and heartbreaking book. From the beginning we know Tequila Leila has been murdered and her body discarded in a bin. The story recounts her life through vignettes as it flashes before her eyes in the 10 minutes and 38 seconds that her brain is still active after her death. In Leila, Shafak shows us that she is not just a 'dead prostitute' but a wonderfully complex woman, with a life and history, with family and friends. It's hard not to feel cheated by the intermittent reminders that Leila is in fact dead, and that she won't get a happy ending.

Within these vignettes Shafak also builds a rich and complex Istanbul, bustling with life and contradictions. We see a cast of different characters, full, vibrant and varied, each with a completely different experience of the city. In the second part to the book, after Leila's brain stops functioning, the plot takes a somewhat unexpected twist, but Shafak pulls it off, telling a story about what really matters in life.

As always the prose is beautiful, evocative and the tale compelling. Shafak transcends politics and even bypasses social commentary to tell a story that at it's centre is about humanity in all it's forms. Shafak refuses to condemn the life choices of anyone, instead showing how all of these characters, predominantly women, fight to survive and sometimes even thrive, in a world that persists in opposing, oppressing and demonising them. This book uses an original, inventive and fascinating device to tell us the story of a woman, challenging the ongoing taboo that there are people in society who are worth any less.

If you are looking for a happy ending, or even closure or resolution then you will be disappointed, because as you know from the get go Leila is dead. Yet in this death, Shafak weaves a beautiful, painful but ultimately moving story of life.

Soaked in Turkish lore, essence and identity, Elif Shafak dedicates this novel to Istanbul and the women who inhabit it. Taking the concept of life flashing before your eyes, Shafak goes one step further, beginning the novel at the end, after her protagonist's death, evoking the remaining ten minutes and 48 seconds of Leila's consciousness, linking events and sensations (she then poetically continues to live, and be revealed to us, through her friendships). It's such a brilliant idea, albeit a sad one, but do be not alarmed, this is far from being a bleak story, Shafak's tale is a flexible one countering a variety of important and serious issues with hilarious moments and colourful characters. Indeed, what upholds the narrative and its characters is a beautiful story of diversity and the transformative power of friendship.

Written through the senses (Leila's story is unravelled through sensual memory, emphasising her inability to move and be), the novel's narrative flows fluidly back and forth recalling a number of moments in Leila's past and accurately reflecting the nature of time upon human consciousness. Shafak is unflinching in the themes and scenes presented in, what feels almost like, a historic novel (entrenched in place, which, like Leila, is unable to physically move but is alive with smells, taste and feeling), emphasising social, economic, religious and political influence upon the lives of people. Leila's own quest for identity (and freedom) is consistently taken from her throughout her existence, from her birth, her childhood and as she attempts to forge her way through a hostile, harsh, judgemental and strange world. However, in spite of the violence and injustice she is exposed to, this is also ultimately a tale of hope, freedom and beauty. I absolutely loved it!

Generosity of spirit... 5 stars

Tequila Leila’s body is dead, but her brain has not yet shut completely down. As her consciousness slowly fades, she finds herself drifting through memories of her life – the childhood that made her the woman she would become, her family, her loves, her friends. And along the way, we are given a picture of the underbelly of Istanbul, of those on the margins finding ways to live in a society that rejects them.

Despite the fact that the main character has just been murdered and is now lying dead in a rubbish bin hoping that someone will discover her body, this is a wonderfully uplifting, life-affirming story. Time ticks down minute by minute for Leila, each marked by an episode from her life, often triggered by a memory of an aroma or a taste, such as the lemons the women used to make the wax for their legs, or the cardamom coffee that Leila loved. And as we follow Leila through her memories, we learn about the people who have had the greatest impact on her life. Her father, hoping always for a son. Her mother, a second wife married as little more than a child to provide that son that the first wife has failed to give. Her uncle, a man who will disrupt her childhood and change her possible futures irrevocably. And most of all her friends – five people she meets along the way who become bound together closer than any family, through ties of love and mutual support in a world that has made them outsiders.

It’s always difficult when reviewing this kind of fictional biography to avoid saying too much, since most of the joy comes from the slow revelations that bring us to where we know the story ends – with Leila’s murder. I loved this one so much I’m going to err on the side of caution and say nothing about Leila’s life, or the lives of her friends, other than that the book is not so much about how they are beaten down by the unfairness of their lives, but rather about how their mutual friendship helps them transcend their circumstances. The prose is wonderful, the many stories feel utterly true and real, and they are beautifully brought together to create an intensely moving picture of a life that might pass unremarked and unmourned by society, but showing how remarkable such a life can be in its intimate details and how mourning is a tribute gained by a loving, generous soul regardless of status.

But as well as the people, Shafak creates a wonderful picture of the darker parts of Istanbul, where those whom society rejects hustle to live – “fallen” women, transgender people, people with physical disabilities, political dissidents, those who simply feel they don’t quite fit the life that has been allocated to them, by their families, by their religion, by the state, by fate. It’s often exotic, with wonderfully sensuous descriptions of food, aromas, sounds, colours. And there’s a sense of danger always hovering, with its corollary of exhilaration. Without any polemics, Shafak lets us see how this society works – still repressive to our Western eyes, but with a tension between those of a conservative cast looking East and those who look with envious longing towards the liberalism and comparative wealth of nearby Europe. A country that itself is in some senses as liminal and marginalised as the characters Shafak creates for us.

A wonderful book that moved me to tears and laughter, that angered me and comforted me and, most of all, that made me love these characters with all their quirks and flaws and generosity of spirit. One of the books of the year for me and, obviously, highly recommended.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Viking at Penguin UK.

This is a story based largely around the experience of women and in particular that of Leila, known as Tequila Leila, who ran away from her family after an unhappy and confusing childhood and became a prostitute in Istanbul. The novel is told, in part, as a series of flashbacks – Leila telling of her life as her dead body lies abandoned in a bin. This is a fascinating approach mixing the traditional ‘life flashing before ones eyes’ trope with recent scientific research which suggests that our brains may continue to be aware for up to ten minutes after the heart has stopped beating and it allows us to see the life which created the wonderful Tequila Leila. And wonderful she is – bold, loving, fearless and loyal. We also hear about her five friends – Jameelah, Zaynab122, Hollywood Humeyra, Sabotage Sinan and Nostalgia Nalan – her fellow outsiders: set apart by who they are, immigrants, runaway brides, transgender, disabled or seemingly loving family men. As the novel tells all their stories, their tragedies and joys, we also hear how and why Leila is killed and how her friends cope with her death.

This is a wonderful book, full of life and energy. As well as the joy, love and laughter it deals with the pain and prejudices faced by those who don’t conform to the dictates of what is deemed to be normal.

The intriguing title of this novel refers to its central conceit – that after the heart stops beating the brain can continue to function for up to 10 minutes. What might someone remember in those minutes? The book tells the story of a prostitute who has been murdered and dumped in a rubbish bin outside Istanbul. We realise immediately she is dead, but we enter her head as she looks back over her life in a series of flashbacks, in particular remembering her friendship with five people, outsiders and misfits like herself, who have become her surrogate family. Each chapter is dedicated to one of those last precious minutes of the ten still left to her and gradually the story of her life unfolds for us. Once I bought into the idea, I found Shafak used it to great effect and I found this a really interesting and often moving tale of a woman managing as best she can in a hostile world. The book celebrates friendship and the support network that can come about through adversity. Shafak unflinchingly explores many issues from sexual and child abuse to mental illness. The portrait of Istanbul, in all its various manifestations, is vivid and comprehensive. There are moments of comedy too, to leaven the despair and tragedy. It’s a multi-layered mosaic of a life and a city and I very much enjoyed it.