Synopsis:
Adel and Kamil, two young good looking Turkish men try to immigrate to North America. Adel’s ruthless grand uncle arranges him to marry Yonka (his spoiled obnoxious cousin) in exchange for his immigration status in Canada. The problem is Yonka and Adel hate each other. The drama heats up even more when Adel has an affair with Nora, his beautiful English teacher which ruins Yonka’s plans. And to add to this, his best friend Kamil has a big secret of his own. How did his life turn into a Turkish soap opera?
Review:
Honestly, I have no idea what I was expecting when I started this book. I had it in my kindle for so many years that I don’t even remember purchasing it. But considering the title, I must have imagined I’d find a fun and somewhat ironic or mocking story between the pages.
The book is pretty far from that and the author might have peacefully removed the “almost” from the title, since this is definitely not “almost”, but “exactly” a soap opera. And unfortunately, not even a great one. Trust me on this, my generation grew up in the times when that type of tv shows were booming. I watched everything during those years, from the most crappy ones they made in the beginning to the more modern ones that didn’t kill your neurons while watching them.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that the story is terrible, but it’s just very plain, predictable and lacking any grain of salt and pepper. You don’t get attached to the characters, you don’t really get to know them enough to care for them. The length of the book might be also one of the reasons for this, since it’s more a novella than a novel.
The one thing I did appreciate was the way the author portrayed the new generation born in a very traditional society. Although young and more or less independent, a vast majority of the youths are still deeply attached to the old mentalities. For years, I would have thought this wouldn’t be possible, that “young” equals “modern” and “open minded”, until I started interacting with an international community and discovered how wrong I was and that the environment and traditions have an enormous impact on one’s personality. Bonus points for the author for doing such a great job in describing this concept.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only thing that I enjoyed. Yes, I was expecting the novella would be a light and easy read. But the concept of soap operas is to get you addicted, to end each episode with a cliffhanger, to make you wish for more. And that’s precisely what Almost A Turkish Soap Opera fails to deliver.
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