Lokum

„Lokum“ by Selin Kahramanoğlu

Bewertung am 26.03.2026
Bewertungsnummer: 3089221
Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

Rating: 4,25⭐️ „To be trapped inside your own mind is terrifying. It is a prison of your own making, one that is both consuming and self-harming. Pain is especially hurtful when it is intangible, because people do not usually recognize pain that doesn’t leave scars and bruises. How can we receive care and begin the process of healing when we cannot understand the scope and impact of our pain? Pain can be hidden among someone’s awards and in the pride they feel for their accomplishments. Pain might sting our eyes as we stare at the egg we dropped on the floor. How do we know that it’s pain if we can still laugh on cue?“ „We are each the sum total of our experiences,” she began. “The traits that make up your identity — you are the combination of several people over many generations. Take the best from them and learn the lessons from the rest of it. You carry teachings and triumphs and skills that go back hundreds of years. Spend time with yourself. The more you engage, the more they can teach you, the more you build yourself up, the more you become who you are meant to be. You yourself are the accumulation of a living and growing community. You are made of legends.” ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— „Lokum“ by Selin Kahramanoğlu follows the protagonist throughout their travels in Istanbul for a day. The story is written in first person narration and is kept gender neutral throughout the entire story, which allows the reader, no matter their gender, to easily put themselves in the position of the narrator. This was, according to the authors note, intended by the author and I think it worked out well. It took me a bit to get into the story and get used to it but once I did, it was a nice reading experience. The protagonist travels back to Istanbul for the first time after 15 years of being abroad and spends the day wandering through the city and talking to various people they meet during that day. The book doesn't only focus on the people and the stories shared with the narrator but also about the narrator’s own struggles of feeling stuck in life and trying to figure out how to navigate their life from now on. The trip through Istanbul isn't just the narrator visiting their favourite places and places they have a special connection to, but also a small journey on trying to find a way back to themselves. When I first requested this book, the description spoke to me and I thought that this could be a nice calming read but I ended up finding myself and my own struggles reflected in it, so much so that it made me tear up sometimes. The author is a Turkish-Canadian immigrant, so is the narrator, and as someone who is the child of immigrants and identifies as Turkish-German herself and is currently in a position in life where I feel down and struggle to find my own path in life, I found myself relating to the narrator a lot. Belonging to two different cultures and identities and being the „the Other“ in both is something that isn’t talked about a lot and I think the author did a great job in bringing the struggle, hardships and feelings that this entails to paper. I resonated a lot with many of the topics that came up in this book and, as I said before, this isn’t something that I have seen being vocalised as much before and I find it difficult to put it into word sometimes myself, so I’m thankful for the author for expressing all of these emotions and experiences and writing this book. I think that this book can create a different reading experience depending on the individual reader. That is why I am looking forward to recommend this book to friends of mine who are from Istanbul, those who are fellow immigrants and those who aren’t immigrants/don't have a background of immigration, because I am curious to hear their thoughts on it and to see how they will experience this story and how they will feel about it.