PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Raised by a single father who looms large in both her happiest memories and her most complicated periods of soul-searching, Owusu has written a memoir powered by a central dilemma: roots give you a solid sense of self, but they also cause you pain ... Does trauma pass between generations? How does a \'colonial mentality\' live on in African countries that once fought long and hard against European rule? These questions underpin Owusu’s thoughts; and, as she embraces the idea of multiple belonging, her book shows us how others make us who we are.
Elif Shafak
MixedThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)After Leila’s narrative reaches full circle with her murder, the perspective switches to that of her five friends. They are devastated to learn that Leila has been buried in an unmarked grave, and proceed to dig her up in the middle of the night. The scene is somewhat farcical—and not necessarily in a good way. Likewise, Shafak’s highly figurative language (\'maybe she was only a half-broken horse\') will divide readers. But the author should be commended for her unflinching confrontation of a range of themes that will resonate well beyond contemporary Turkey: victim blaming, the policing of women’s behaviour, stigma surrounding disability, and violence against sex workers. Above all, Elif Shafak shows how Turkey’s diversity, long feared and denied by its powerful, lives on in the personal histories of its migrant multitudes in \'old, manic\' Istanbul.
