As someone who often feels lost in life I really enjoy stories in which the MC is looking to find themselves. This book absolutely delivered in this aspect.

Holiday Country was an excellent listen. I appreciated Inci Atrek's writing and strong sense of place. I enjoyed the character study as well.

I picked this up based on the cover, and short synopsis,. While I typically enjoy a coming of age story, the plot and characters were difficult to connect with for me. I did love the lush seaside town and aspects of life living in Turkey though.

I listened to the audiobook format, and still struggled with the characters, which unfortunately lacked any chemistry.

*many thanks to Macmillan audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

This book has 2 redeeming qualities in my eyes, the atmosphere created by the author and the narration. Beyond that I struggle to find anything about this book that really sold me on liking it or wanting to recommend it to others. I had a trusted reviewer friend who I knew also had this book and I reached out to her halfway through because I thought she had finished. She told me she DNFed, I stuck it out, I tried, I really tried. I was told the last 10% stuff would happen. I mean technically it did but did it make the investment of time into this book worthwhile? Absolutely not. I'm sorry to the author, I loved your atmosphere and had I read it in print I feel I maybe would have at least appreciated the writing style but the story was a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of "Holiday Country" in exchange for an honest review. I thought that this was a beautiful debut by Atre. Nineteen year old Ada feels torn between her life and upbringing in California and her Turkish summers with her mom and grandma. I was captivated by the lyrical writing and the setting. Ada spends her summer feeling lost and on the precipice of adulthood. It's interesting to see the mother/daughter dynamic at work within the generations and to see the impacts of the past on the present and future. The plot was not the key to my enjoyment of the book. The pace of it felt appropriate for characters who talked about scheduling their days based on the location of the sun etc. Through judging the characters' decisions the reader is able to take a peek backwards and reflect on their choices and the evolution of their adulthood. While I didn't need things to be wrapped up perfectly, there are a few things that were left a little bit too unresolved for me.

There have been a slew of vacation gone bad titles released since White Lotus first aired. Many of them are more or less just run of the mill thriller that you see hit the shelves in May just in time to become exceptionally meta airport books. A few of them have stood out with solid writing, genuine intrigue, and something extra that draws you in.

Holiday Country is not a saccharine beach read. It is a complex character study about identity. Atrek writes beautifully about the landscape and you become absorbed in absolutely the best way. The narration on the audio version is excellent and I think this is sure to please lovers of literary fiction.

I really enjoyed the character but the last third of the book felt flat and I wasn’t a huge fan of it .

Overall it was a fun listen and thank your NetGalley for the arc .

This book made me want to go to a seaside town! A well read audiobook, it is a coming of age story set on the Aegean sea, in which the self-assured 19 year old main character makes some questionable decisions while on an annual summer trip, and it explodes in her face in the last 1/3 of the book. I didn't love this book, but it did hold my interest, and I liked the ending. It would be a great beach read!

I tried so hard to get into this book in the end, I could not engage with it

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The description in this book was beautiful. I really could imagine the seaside Turkish village that this book was set in. I did struggle with the characters as all of them were pretty unlikable. Ada, was extremely hard for me to understand or relate to. In fact, I found her perspective to be a bit alienating and I felt like I never really got a good explanation for her decision to sleep with Levent. I also found the scenario unbelievable...not because young girls don't fall for old men, but because there was literally zero chemistry between Ada and Levent. Overall, while their writing was lovely and technically proficient, this ended up being so-so for me. I think Atrek shows a lot of promise both in skill and creativity and I look forward to seeing how her future books are written.

This is one of those books I think I would have enjoyed more if I was reading the physical book instead of listening to the audio. It is really beautifully written and I don't think that always translates super well to audio- at least for me. But I should add that I'm not the best audiobook listener and though I generally love books that are slower with less plot, I find that I often need more when listening as opposed to reading.

And this book is a slow one. It contains a lot of lush descriptions of setting, it contains a lot of feelings, and it doesn't contain a lot of action. I wouldn't even say the book is particularly character-driven as I couldn't manage to feel like I really knew any of the characters throughout my reading. I also didn't love one of the main plot points of the story as it gave me a bit of the ick.

I did love the descriptions of the Turkish seaside town and the idea of being a summer resident of the country. I wish I could go back and re-read this one for the first time via physical book!

An interesting story about a mother daughter relationship. Ada is a good daughter, but who does want to be her own person. Her mother, who is from Turkey has never tried to make a life for herself in the US takes her back annually to Turkey. That part of the book was interesting as the author was so descriptive she brought it to life. The mother daughter grandmother dynamic is interesting and yet I didn’t really connect with any of them. Interesting and good narration, but I kept starting and stopping to finally finish. The narration was wonderful.

Holiday Country is a different story than I usually read. The writing is really well done and beautiful and the narrator does a fantastic job. That being said this one just wasn’t a good fit for me. Not much seems to really happen until the end of the story and I didn’t find any of the characters to be particularly likable. I didn’t like the storyline of Ada chasing a man her mother used to date as a young girl; it came off creepy. Overall, I just didn’t find myself engaged with the story but there are a lot of great aspects that might interest other readers. The dynamics between Ada, her mother and her grandmother are interesting and show the difficulties with each parenting style and how it all affects three generations of women. The concept of belonging, particularly when you have parents that come from two different cultures and countries is very relatable.

I voluntarily listened to an advanced digital copy of the audio through NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Well this was just not the book for me. I enjoyed learning about Turkish culture and the Turkish seaside. However, I did not find the storyline engaging or the characters very likable. The main character made some pretty cringy decisions so I found it hard to sympathize or root for her very much. I thought the audio narrator did a great job and the writing of the book was great, just not a storyline that resonated with me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I was given a free copy of this audio book in exchange for a fair review from #Netgalley.

map-of-turkey

Map showing Turkey (click for image credit)
My Interest

When I started this blog (my old blog was also mostly books) I wanted to have a regular feature on older man–younger woman relationships in real life, in books, and in film. Those posts are still my most popular! But, finding material became a problem. And today people scream “P-o—-ile” if the man is more than a about three years older. In fact I was listening to this as more documents related to a guy named “Jeff” came out. Anyway, this book hinted at an older man–younger woman relationship. I requested it on Netgalley and got it.
The Story

“an erect Camel balancing on his lips, his swim trunks hardened by having dried out on the balcony over night”

Ada is a 19 year old Turkish-American and Stanford swim team member. He Dad is American, her mother Turkish. She and her mother have long spent their summers with her grandmother in a resort area of Turkey. This summer Levent, a man her mother once dated (and possibly expected to marry), is staying in a villa in the town. He has an air of mystery and is known to go skinny dipping in the middle of the night.

Ada, who is in a relationship back in California with Ian, starts to be curious about Levent and begins building a fantasy life with him even while hanging out with her age-mate Turkish summer friends–a fantasy life that the Camel cigarette quote above points to. (Don’t worry, this is not a book full of “ick”–it’s very tame).

“there is something here–its not all in my head”

Ada thinks she understands her mother and her mother’s past. She also thinks her own life should be lived in Turkey, but she needs an “anchor”–which she feels her mother lacked in California and which kept her mother from enjoying their life there.

Ada’s Grandmother has taken steps to help her daughter, but Ada only sees her grandmother as a control freak. Finally a neighbor enlightens Ada on some of her family’s past and Ada sets her course.

“…rebellion …is a different sort of obedience.”

“…the past seems to be but a story you tell yourself with no evidence of its passing….”

A 19 year-old may be able to lead the world in swimming, but she has no idea who Levent, or any man his age, is or why he is around. When her plan at first seems to work she is briefly satisfied, until, like so many plans made in our youth, it starts to unravel.
My Thoughts

I deliberately chose “younger woman–older man romance” as the title of this review. The story is Ada’s, not Levent’s. I liked seeing this in action. I liked remembering my own self at 19–so sure I knew what I was doing, so sure that like Lady Diana Spencer, I would be “right” for an older man. How silly are teenagers? Yet like Ada (and, from the sound of it Diana) when we were around our age-mates we were as naive and stupid as they were. Ada may have turned down the cookies on the grounds that she was an athlete and couldn’t eat them, but deep down she knew it was a test and was determined to pass. [No spoilers] Diana sat through Opera and fly-fishing. I’d have made myself pass the test, too, had it ever been set before me.

There will likely be pages of quotes posted from this book–the writing was like that. The cigarette quote, with it’s effortlessly painted picture of what is in Ada’s mind is the one that stuck with me though. (As did the one on rebellion).

The story took a little while to take off, but was worth it in the end.

My Verdict
4.0

Holiday Country: A Novel by Inci Atrek

I listened to the audio book.

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I enjoyed the narration of this novel. And, the author’s descriptions of life in Turkey were fabulous. However, the plot failed to carry the day for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free audiobook.

I really enjoyed the narrator, I think I could listen to just about anything she read. The setting, a coastal city in Turkey, was also a plus for me as I've never read anything set in Turkey before. I enjoyed learning about the culture.

However, the overall plot and characters just didn't do it for me. I was reminded of the movie Rumor Has It, but not nearly as good. The whole book I kept thinking 'don't do it Ada' and of course.. she did it. It was ALMOST a book about mother daughter relationships. It was ALMOST a book about finding where you belong.

This is a somewhat interesting book for those who really like a dynamic mother/daughter relationship.

Ada and her mother Meltem travel to a Turkish seaside town every summer. Meltem grew up there, leaving when she got married and moved to the states. Both women struggle in Turkey. Meltem feels disconnected from where she grew up and its culture, while Ada doesn't feel like she belongs there at all.

I did enjoy exploring the Turkish culture, it is one I knew nothing about, and I also enjoyed imagining the scenery that was described in the story, but unfortunately I was not fond of the story, it fell flat with me. I think mostly it was the characters, I never really engaged with them and that is something that always leaves me lacking.

I did enjoy the narrator and would easily listen to anything she read.

As I first started reading this one I was a little confused on what was going on. But as I read more, I became very intrigued.

Although I didn't necessarily agree with the decisions of the characters. I did come to appreciate the ideal of belonging and finding oneself.

The setting was beautiful, and it was just about the only thing I liked about the novel. The writing was superb and lyrical, but the plot and characters fell flat. More could have gone on about the generational trauma and less could have been said about the whiny main character. The pace was also very slow throughout most of the book.