Geraldine Bedell of The Guardian wrote, "The book is important for having drawn attention to the massacres and to the Turks' ambivalence about them, and for what it has exposed about freedom of speech.

"[2] Lorraine Adams of The New York Times wrote, "When the novel's skeleton finally dances out of its flimsy closet, it's clear that although Shafak may be a writer of moral compunction she has yet to become — in English, at any rate — a good novelist.

A valuable moment in the klieg lights has been squandered, but Shafak, still in her 30s, has more than enough time to grow into a writer whose artistry matches her ambition.

"[3] In June 2006, Kemal Kerinçsiz, a nationalist lawyer, sued Elif Shafak for allegedly "insulting Turkishness" in her novel by dealing with the Armenian Genocide in the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

In September 2006, the court, attended also by Joost Lagendijk, co-chair of the delegation to the EU–Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, acquitted her of criminal charges due to lack of legal grounds for the crime in question and insufficient evidence in the controversial trial.