Hi there, welcome to Vie Bibliophile!

Vie Bibliophile started as a book blog during the pandemic but it has since evolved into much more. You can still find my book reviews on my Instagram page @viebibliophile or better yet my Goodreads profile @viebibliophile (this includes recent reviews, too!) but I am now interested in more than reviewing books on my platform. I am very passionate about literature and writing; I write about my ideas, things that inspire me (books, movies, shows, paintings, photographs), things that happen in my personal life and basically every other thought that keeps me up at night. I also write fiction, you can read some of my short stories here but I haven’t published any of my long-term projects yet.

Who am I?

My name is Merve (pronounced “mehr-veh,” similar to the French word “merveille” for any French speakers out there). I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. I moved to the United States on a student visa when I was 18, so I go back and forth between Turkey and the US a lot. I studied Molecular Biology and Comparative Literature at the University of California Berkeley, where I did a minor in French language and literature. I recently graduated and I am now living in Boston, Massachusetts—a city that I adore. I’m a cancer biologist by day, writer and reader by night!

Reading and writing have always had a big role in my life. Ever since I was a kid I've had the habit of expressing my thoughts and feelings in text, and looking for answers to my problems in words. I used to write short stories as a little girl and poetry as a teenager going through a journey of self-discovery. Now, as an adult, I’m absorbing so much of the world around me and often feel overwhelmed by it; writing is my way of processing my thoughts and reading is a way to expand and nourish them.

I’m a strong believer that we are what we read; in the long run, the content you choose to consume changes you in irreversible ways. I write mostly for myself, but sometimes also with the hope that maybe someday, somewhere in this world, someone will be inspired by something I write, and I will be able to change their lives for the better.

Thank you for being here. It means the world to me.