Almost a Turkish Soap Opera

Think of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle." Like that movie (which I really liked!), "Almost a Turkish Soap Opera" is a sweet look at two young men who just want to have fun but feel constrained by the restrictive traditions of Turkish life including arranged marriages and putting family obligations before personal happiness.The heroes, Adel and Kamil are both highly likable. Their adventures are funny without resorting to cheap laughs or cultural stereotypes. As they muddle their way through a series of ever more complicated imbroglios, we learn more about the web of Turkish customs and family life, how different people cope and, the real payoff, the joys of finding ways to fit in."Almost a Turkish Soap Opera" makes you smile (maybe even laugh) and lets you hang out with likable characters, all while providing a slice of life in a culture you may not know much about.Recommended!

Soap opera is a pretty apropos title, it is a very melodramatic story. I was not a fan of the voice in which this was written, which came across as somewhat stilted and halting at times, but it overall was a fun read and certainly worth the time. I was impressed by the ending--not at all what I expected but also not unbelievable, which is a very difficult balance to strike.

I must admit that I haven't read anything like this in the past but have read the author's other series and was very impressed with the writing. Seeing that this was taken to video and has a quite original story line sold me. So glad that I took the leap because "Almost a Turkish Soap Opera" was an enjoyable read from start to finish. The story of Adel, who travels from Istanbul to Los Angeles with plans for a new life. Nothing goes as planned for Adel as he falls in love, has his heart broken, is betrayed, deported, and manipulated at every turn. The cultural aspects of the story were interesting enough but the drama and relationships made this a must read. Very well done.

I'm not normally one to read many from this genre, but the cultural fusion that this book promised is what motivated me to read it. Almost a Turkish Soap Opera is very entertaining and does it from an outside-of-the-norm ideology and thought process. Sometimes books start off slow, but pick it up towards the middle and ending, but this book was solid throughout. Anne-Rae Vasquez did an excellent job at introducing, then building the characters and plotting them along the storyline with perfect timing.Almost a Turkish Soap Opera is full of emotions, twists, cultural fusion and entertainment. I highly recommend this book to anybody who is looking for something just a little different to quench the thirst of their book-addicted palate.

Almost a Turkish Soap Opera becomes more interesting as you read on. As the drama goes into full swing, it's difficult to put the book down even for a short break. The characters of this book are colorful; perhaps many of them resemble the characters in some Turkish soap operas, though I haven't watched one.Action begins when the 25-year-old Adel -- handsome, business savvy, and sometimes quixotic -- leaves his home in Istanbul and arrives at Los Angeles with his best friend Kamil. He meets Nora, who visits LA from Vancouver, Canada, and then falls for her, but the meeting is cut short because Adel is manipulated by his grand uncle, a domineering, contemptible figure to Adel's family. Mirwan, a pawn of Adel's grand uncle, reports Adel to the U.S. immigration services. Adel is detained and subsequently deported back to Turkey. After a short stay in Istanbul, Adel heads for Vancouver where Kamil lives with his new wife Ayca. There, at the cultural crossroads of the West and the Middle East, Adel, his cousin Yonka, Kamil, Nora, Ayca, and other characters intersect.Adel's presence (and perhaps Kamil's as well) in Vancouver was arranged by Adel's grand uncle, whose aim is to marry Adel to his beloved granddaughter Yonka, a cunning and egocentric woman who lives a life of decadence. Adel plunges into the whirlwind of Yonka's schemes (into the untenable and unconsummated marriage) and of falling in love with Nora again. Eastern and Muslim culture collides with Western ways and ideas and brings the characters together at times and pulls them apart at others.To many Western readers, the culture of the Middle East, which still exercises arranged marriages along with dowries and marriages among cousins, could be strange. But we also find Jane Austin's world strange, which is not that long ago, as well as some of today's American societies in which polygamy and other taboos are tolerated; this book teaches us that we should understand the cultural differences in the world to live together more harmoniously.The book is scene-oriented with relatively short chapters, and thus a page-turner -- I thoroughly enjoyed it. Adel's father is weak in front of his domineering uncle, but toward the end, he stands up against him and he and his poor family finally get what they deserve. The novel has an unexpected and highly satisfying ending, with dramatic irony in a literary sense. After reading the book I also watched snippets of the eponymous movie on the Internet, written and directed by Anne-Rae Vasquez; the book and the movie went together very well and the movie augmented my sense of the characters. And I am looking forward to reading and seeing more of the work by this talented writer-artist in the near future.

I thought the writing was fine and I enjoyed the depictions of the struggles of immigrants to North America . It covered the work ethic of those trying to achieve the American Dream, and how important it is to have legal status. I liked the attention to cultural norms and learning new things about Turkish culture. The downside is the love story never really takes off and the characters never really inspire any interest for the reader. Not one of them did I really get to know or understand. For the most part., I didn't like them very much....Selfish or weak and shallow and flat. The story was much the same.

Obviously written by a person whose native language is not English. Reads more like a screen play than a novel. The characterization is not particularly well developed. Very little description or plot development. Big gaps left at times that could have improved the pace and interest in the book. For instance, how did Adel's kidnappers manage to get him through TSA checkpoints in the airports? What happened on the long flight to Istanbul? Didn't the other passengers suspect that he was being abducted?