Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul
I'm not really sure what to make of this novel, so I'll just dive in with a brief summary. It's basically about two girls, one a Turkish girl, an illegimate daughter who lives with her mother, her three aunts, and various other female relatives. The other is a half-Armenian American girl who travels to Istanbul on a whim to try and find a connection to her grandmother's past. Since the American girl's stepfather is the Turkish girl's uncle, she ends up staying with her family, bonding, learning life lessons, whatever. Parts of the ending are quite shocking and parts were really predictable, and maybe would have been more so if I'd had an easier time keeping track of all the various grandmothers' stories. One of the more interesting things about this book is that the author was put on trial for denigrating Turkishness because the characters discuss the Armenian genocide (she ended up not going to prison). I will say this for her novel: the story turned out much differently than I was expecting (an early mention of a character with eyes full of "fiery intelligence" made me worry I was getting into Danielle Steel territory). I am still going, "wait, WHAT?" about the ending, although actually I wish it had gone on a little longer. Um, I have no idea what grade to give this. We'll go with a B.
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