“The unreliability of memory; the ways we talk to ourselves and to each other; how we can act as detectives in our own lives, combing the past for clues; how places can seem clearer from afar than when we are there — all these themes are touched on in Savaş’s spare, disarmingly simple prose. She writes with both sensuality and coolness, as if determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of existence.” – The New York Times

“An original, mesmerizing story...a beguiling tale of two cities which expertly illuminates ‘the devious ways of memory.’”- The Economist

“With godly precision, she has constructed a paper city out of the pages of her novel, and we happily follow her toward every courtyard and dead end.”- Los Angeles Review of Books

“An elegiac rumination on the nature of recollection and identity.” - The New Yorker

“[A] beguiling little novel… Indeed, going out for a stroll is the activity that most resembles the reading of Savaş’s book.” – The New York Times Book Review

“It's the kind of novel that stuns you in a way both quiet and surprising, launching you into reveries of your own.” – Nylon Magazine

“Ayşegül Savaş’s debut novel is a kaleidoscope of exquisite memories… Engrossing.” – Christian Science Monitor

“The dislocations of place, identity, time, and truth eddy through Savaş’s elegant debut. . . in spare yet evocative prose, Savaş’s moving coming-of-age novel offers a rich exploration of intimacy, loneliness, and the endless fluidity of historical, cultural, and personal narrative.”—Publishers Weekly

“Nunu calls this reminiscence of M. an ‘inventory,’ and that is exactly what Savaş has produced here, rendering with elegant intelligence the minute details of both places and people…A refined and wistful exploration of the nature of memory.” —Kirkus, starred review

“Quiet, intense, and moving.” —Literary Hub

“Sensual, fragile, scented with hope and loss, Walking on the Ceiling is a powerful debut and Ayşegül Savaş is an extremely talented rising star.”—Dorthe Nors, author of Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

“Ayşegül Savaş is an enormous new talent who writes with the rigor of Didion and the tenderness of Sebald. Walking on the Ceiling holds the immediacy of youth and the depth of long-earned wisdom at once. Its elegant voice is sure to summon old memories and longings from each reader, relighting them anew.”—Catherine Lacey, author of The Answers

“This quietly intense debut is the product of a wise and probing mind.” —Helen Phillips, author of The Need

“I fell in love with this book.”—Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation

“A tender portrait of a young woman exploring her identity and coming to terms with her personal history… Like Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton, this novel is deceptively simple and subtly profound.” —Booklist

“This exquisite first novel . . . examines the futility of capturing a story, of how we inevitably deceive when we tell the story of ourselves.” – Library Journal

“Throughout, Savaş writes sensitively, and personal revelations fill the pages of Walking on the Ceiling… The poetic quality of the author’s prose draws you in… The novel’s short chapters string together carefully drawn vignettes that enhance the diaristic feel of her story.” – Bookpage

“It’s the sort of quiet story that can be absolutely mesmerizing in a gifted writer’s hands, and just a few pages of Walking on the Ceiling suggest that Savaş has that gift for the telling detail, the comic jab, the piercing observation.”—Huffington Post

“A confident, quiet, and quietly devastating novel… Ayşegül Savaş has created a tender but frank examination of how we make and remake ourselves, both about and to ourselves.” – Adam Biles, Shakespeare & Co Podcast