Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

Will I ever get tired of introspective, depressed girl lit? Probably not!

Leyla is a 20-something Turkish woman who takes a job as a cleaner while she’s embroiled in a legal battle with her university to stay in Germany after her supervisor failed her thesis. She tries to seek solace in drugs and the Berlin nightlife, as well as her journal, hoping to become a published author. One night she meets a conservative Swedish Volvo salesman and is faced with the choice of abandoning her dreams to become his wife or returning to Turkey to possibly one day be arrested for her writing.

While initially I felt disappointment at Leyla’s casual acceptance of the Swede’s rightwing politics (he maintains it’s for the economic benefits, not the bigotry), Koca quickly makes you interrogate that reaction in terms of privilege and status - things Leyla, as a Turkish woman writer and immigrant, does not have. Leyla grapples with all of this in her journals, as well as battling her mother’s expectations for her. Koca explores the divide that only grows between parents and immigrant children, not only in terms of distance but in shiftings of belief/values. Leyla struggles to bridge that divide and juggle the various parts of herself.

I also appreciated the commentary on immigration & xenophobia from a German perspective. Koca posits Berlin as a centre of sexual revolution, but points out that this comes with a lot of unwanted sexual attention and harassment for women, that they’re expected to just accept because hey, it’s Berlin. We also get a look into Turkey via Leyla’s mother, who regularly encourages her to stop watching the news about Turkey and try this new soap opera instead. There’s a tendency to put their heads in the sand, to not discuss things like coups and domestic violence even when they’re happening in their own home and outside their front door.

I know there’s quite a lot of books centring messy women at the moment (here for it personally) but I think The Applicant definitely has something fresh to offer! My only gripe is that the writing occasionally felt lacklustre in parts, and I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose because it was meant to be Leyla’s unfiltered thoughts in her journal!