Tequila Laila has lost her life. Suddenly, tragically, suffering to the end for no fault of her own. It seems her death had the same gloom surrounding her just like her birth.

But as that infant; so many years ago, born with a stubborn mind and resolute heart – she is not ready to leave this earthly realm yet. At least, not for the next 10 minutes and 38 seconds.

So each of the chapter opens like a memory; picked out by Laila’s heart or head, but mostly her heart – each one with a peculiar sound, smell, taste or people. Like she remembers her childhood, being but still not being with her mother, how that shaped her mind till the very end.

Born in small provincial town in eastern Turkey as Leyla Afife Kamile Akarsu was the daughter of a weak, lesser second wife but reared by the cold hearted first one; under the tyrannical eyes of her father. It was quite a strange, lonely existence in a humongous house. Not helped by having company of a special needs sibling, whose still life and sudden death afflicted her mother till the last days of her life.

But this is no idyllic childhood, that sense of security and family is soon taken away from her by her paternal uncle. The family skeleton tumbling out of Laila’s cupboard are although traumatic but did not seem so shocking to me. As I am reading from an Eastern woman’s perspective, therefore what happens at Laila’s family home seems not so surprising. In most of the traditional, eastern cultures where family’s respect and standing in the society is judged by its daughter’s virtues and piety; so it is not so alarming that her father blames her for the sins of his own brother.

What comes next – her escape to Istanbul, times spent over there and the gaining of famous five friends; this part comes more vividly. However, all those friends are mere 2 dimensional characters in Laila’s storyline except Sinan. Sinan is her oldest friend and used to be closest confidant; till the time he could not show any confidence in himself or his feeling for Laila. The rest of the famous five come to the forefront only in the Second & Epilogue part of the book.

Here, while discussing about Laila’s body; the whims, quirks and backgrounds of each of them fully came to the light. You can chuckle with Humariya, pray with Zainab122 and pity the weak spirited Sinan. On my part, the most remembered character from this book was Nostalgic Nalan – fiery, stubborn, individualist red hair woman.

So all these friends of Laila, make her journey into afterlife possible; at times risking their own lives with addition of a movie style police chase.

The narrative, story building and using of so many symbolic details of Turkey is all quite interesting. However, as I said before I am more taken by her friends’ backstories than the main protagonist here.

Having said that, I couldn’t find any reason not to recommend this book for a good reading experience. It’s one of those interesting, breezy weekend reads which can awe and surprise you in places but results in a joyful book time after all.