A prostitute is murdered in Istanbul. Even if she is dead, her mind has still some 10 minutes and 38 seconds to contemplate the story of her life because it his completely extinguished. The angle of attack is good. The life of Leila is described with energy, compassion, humour and with a strong stylistic voice. It reminds a little bit of the sweeping language of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: impossible families, strange and suffocating superstitions, rebels and conservatives, but all described with character and interest. In the first part of the book the "told time" is much longer than the "tell time".
Unfortunately, Shafak does not manage to keep the same level of writing throughout the book. The sweeping tale becomes a boring description of how her friends unearth her body after her fast burial by the city authorities. The whole last section of the book is an anticlimax. The "told time" and the "tell time" coincide, and the writing reports the events of the moment, of the story, and lose the grand voice of the beginning.
And that's a pity, because her writing is highly enjoyable.
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