10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World begins in the moments after Tequila Leila is murdered. For the next ten minutes and thirty some seconds, Leila's consciousness fades, but not without a surge of memories, each starting with the recollection of a scent or taste. The first half of this novel takes us on this journey in Leila's brain, the huge peaks and valleys that make up her joyous and tortured existence. Leila is so wonderfully drawn, and the orchestration of the events that surround her is expertly done. I was very much pulled into her story—I cannot speak highly enough of these 183 pages.

The idea behind the second part of the novel was a good one, but it failed to pull me in in anyway close to the first half. In Part Two, we're brought into the circle of Leila's five friends—all of whom were introduced in Part One—as they grieve and embark on a quest to honor Leila's memory. There are some wonderful characters in this group, but none have been developed past a slightly expanded character sketch. Certainly, none along the lines of Leila. In some ways this section remains about Leila, but we really don't learn much more about her here, nothing that really develops her story. This part of the novel merely feels like an old-fashioned quest taken by a group of friends.

Of this year's Booker longlist, 10 Minutes... remains one of my favorites—certainly worthy of its shortlist nomination. I don't think it's the eventual winner, but I also don't feel like I've read the winner yet. My interest in Shafak is very much alive and I look forward to reading more of her work.