It becomes clear that her youthful perception of this influence may not be entirely accurate. She refers to Lejla’s “subtle violence” and the ways Lejla influenced her behavior. Their friendship was important but also damaging to Sara because of the way she internalized this comparison. “Even now,” Sara says, “within this text, I can almost feel her fidget.” The bookish Sara has always defined herself in contrast to the wild Lejla, even when the contrast exists entirely in her own mind. Lejla always pushed Sara beyond her comfort zone, and she resists easy characterization on the page. She is three hits on the keyboard.” The two friends journey together to Vienna to search for Lejla’s brother, reconstructing their shared past and reconciling their differing memories of childhood events as they go. Sara narrates the story as a marginally fictionalized tale of her reunion with the reckless Lejla: “ I am the one telling the story. Twelve years after their last interaction, Sara-who now lives in Dublin-receives an urgent phone call from her friend and returns to Bosnia to help Lejla find her exiled brother, Armin. Translated from Serbo-Croatian to English by Bastašić herself, this tale explores the relationship of Sara and Lejla, childhood friends who grew up amid the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. A Yugoslav-born writer’s debut novel is a tale of fraught female friendship.
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