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Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson – Book Reviev

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Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson – Book Cover

Oops, another Scandinavian crime novel, and to top it off, written by a blonde chick. What does this most likely mean? Well, that Fatal Isles is a psycho-thriller? More precisely? Whining and whimpering? Well, no, you’re mistaken (at least in this case). Once you successfully get through the opening pages, which dissect the aftermath of an alcohol-fueled night, going into excessive detail, Maria Adolfsson’s novel turns into a pro crime story.

The initial setup, with Karen Hornby, a criminal inspector, sleeping with her jerk boss, is entirely self-serving and could easily be dispensed with; and once the investigation kicks into gear, it won’t hold much significance. Though things get complicated, at least for Karen, as the victim turns out to be the prick boss’s wife. The boss is sidelined, and Karen takes over the investigation.

The setting, the Doggerland archipelago, where British and Scandinavian cultures mingle, seems highly fictional. If geography isn’t your forte, and you were planning to vacation here next year, you might be disappointed. (Your feet might dangle in the water, or those darn wind turbines might drive you nuts…) Your suspicion, however, is cleverly assuaged by the islands’ professional environmental and sociological depiction, which seamlessly integrates into Fatal Isles’ text.

It seems like a good place overall, maybe just finding the machismo in the police force a bit exaggerated. But as a one-time reader, it still affects you because you’d most likely prefer to smack the meddling colleagues with a larger-than-average shovel instead of the patient Karen.

Karen already has a low opinion of herself, and she somewhat harps on the fact that the investigation is progressing slowly. If you were her boss, you’d let her do her job; it’s evident she knows what she’s doing. She conducts her work professionally and conscientiously, and her investigation doesn’t turn into some sort of obsession, like, say, Bosch’s investigations (see Michael Connelly’s The Concrete Blonde).

Karen’s personal life isn’t intrusive either; even if some scenes end up slightly longer than necessary. And because of her past tragedy, which is slowly revealed to keep your curiosity piqued, you’re generally forgiving towards her.

The investigation runs on two tracks, but reading the flashbacks, you can still guess where the resolution might lie. Yet, thanks to the cunning dosing of information, you still manage to get a bit uncertain at times. And in the end, just when you think you know everything, you get quite surprised. Or, well, maybe not you. I, for one, was surprised.

And then, you might even get moved because, it seems, a blonde lady just can’t entirely shed her skin, and by the end of The Fatal Isles, she must include an almost unnecessary, yet emotional closure. But in the case of a fundamentally good crime novel, this can be forgiven. And its effect will surely be nullified in the next installment of Adolfsson’s Doggerland series.

8.1/10

Fatal Isles (Doggerland #1) by Maria Adolfsson
514 pages, Paperback
Published 2021 by Zaffre

The Greed by Scott Bergstrom – Book Review

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The Greed by Scott Bergstrom – Book Cover

Scott Bergström’s book series is celebrated as a rejuvenator of the young adult genre, although it’s highly debatable whether it can even be called young adult at all; after all, the only connection is the protagonist’s age, and even that’s mostly true only in the first book, where Gwendolyn, who certainly isn’t your typical teenager, was a 17-year-old youngster. In ” The Greed,” she’s now trampling through her 19th grim year. (And their adversaries. She tramples them too.)

The not-so-human-friendly world of espionage isn’t a common theme in YA literature either (the Alex Rider books come to mind suddenly, although they’re aimed at a much younger audience). So, this series can be enjoyed by mature teenagers and up, as it’s fundamentally entertaining.

Scott Bergström is no longer as modest when it comes to sex as he was in the first part: little Gwendolyn has become somewhat more daring; although it’s true that the momentum slows down during the romantic parts, the author fails to convincingly convey deeper emotions. Here, you really sense a bit of a taste for young adult literature, although fortunately it’s only for a few chapters.

As cliché as “The Greed” is in matters of romance, it is just as unpredictably engaging as a thriller. In the first book, Gwendolyn discovered the cruelty within herself needed to stay alive, and now she’s presenting the bill for all the suffering. After the well-developed opening chapters, she embarks on diverse adventures: hiding, fleeing, investigating her own parents’ past, a bit of reluctantly accepted hitman work, and then stiffly opposed “hospital treatment”; however, her adventures occasionally trespass into the realm of unseriousness for brief moments.

Fortunately, although Gwendolyn is at least as sharp as, say, Jane Hawk (see Dean Koontz’s “The Whispering Room“), it turns out she’s not (always) invincible. And fortunately—better late than never—Bergström also realizes that what doesn’t work (and here we mean romantic troubles) doesn’t need to be forced—even if it means traveling all the way to Budapest.

In similar novels, the good side is usually represented by Americans, but here, the faceless CIA is the antagonist—no super-secret clique or a few treacherous scoundrels; Gwendolyn and her father anger the entire company, indeed the entire glorious American nation. A more believable and tangible main antagonist wouldn’t have hurt the story.

The ending of „The Greed”, however, is too, um, bombastic, and the clumsy melodramatic final scene is just another reminder of the young adult toolkit. But at least you can guess what the title of the next book will likely be. Envy? Pride? Lust? Ummm, no, more like something related to irreconcilable vengeance.

7.7/10

The Greed (The Cruelty #2) by Scott Bergstrom
416 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2018 by Feiwel & Friends

The Other Son by Alexander Söderberg – Book Review

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The Other Son by Alexander Söderberg – Book Cover

Sophie Brinkmann enters a criminal organization as an outsider (see: The Andalucian Friend). This profession is better learned from the ground up because if you just dive into it like Pilate into the Creed, you might end up making a professional mistake. Which could result in getting shot a few times.

So, an Other Son? Moreover, a stepchild?? He’s missing from her life like a hump on her back!

But let’s hear the good news instead: Alexander Söderberg’s second installment in the series is much more action-packed than the first. First off, it lacks that somewhat dull exposition. Then, what’s good about it is that the story is entirely unpredictable; you never know which direction the plot will take. And listen, in The Other Son, you might even find yourself genuinely rooting for a character. Or more than one.

The recipe for the second volume is familiar from the previous installment: two separate groups, two separate stories, the adventures of Sophie and Hector, who is just emerging from a karmacoma (see Karmacoma on YouTube), and the police investigation, which only converge at the end of the book. And speaking of police investigation: unfortunately, the same disappointing storytelling element enters here as in the first volume: the dirty cop effect; only while it was somewhat believable there, here, it starts to approach incredibility, as the slowly going completely crazy Big Chief Tommy would be much better off laying low, because this way nobody would tie him to the crimes of the previous part.

And how did this happen?

Well, there was a need for a villain, and there you go. Of course, it could also be explained by Alexander Söderberg’s love for creating messed-up characters, especially those in law enforcement (just remember the drug-addicted sociopath and his colleagues from the prequel). In Miles’ case, you can’t quite decide what the heck he’s doing in the story; his self-discovery and romance are entirely unnecessary from the perspective of the big picture, but nevertheless, these are perhaps the most noteworthy parts of the book. And the joint investigation with his colleague didn’t turn out bad either, even though you’d initially think it would fizzle out completely because they sniff around what was the main plot of the previous volume. So, you know what they’re going to figure out, but it’s still exciting to see how they keep moving forward despite all the obstacles.

However, Sophie, the well-meaning family woman sinking into the swamp of crime, has to experience the lesson behind the proverb “If you lie down with dogs, you get up torn into tiny shreds” if there is such a proverb in Sweden. Luckily, she also gets some help in trouble, namely from the two best characters from the first installment, Jens and our favorite Russian hitman, Mikhail. And as expected, by the end of the book, even this latter experiences some character development.

Unfortunately, though, overzealous employees can be found not only on the police force: hello, Aron, we’re looking at you disapprovingly, whose role is probably the same as Tommy’s: to somewhat forcedly and clumsily push the plot forward to the next volume (see: The Good Wolf). Because of these, this installment, while not as average as the first volume, – with more twists, more enjoyable scenes added to it, – is still much more variable in quality due to quite a few questionable moves.

7/10

The Other Son (Brinkmann Trilogy #2) by Alexander Söderberg
400 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2015 by Knopf Canada

False Gods by Graham McNeill – Book Review

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False Gods by Graham McNeill - Book Cover

In False Gods, the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet continues to march forward under the leadership of Horus Lupercal (and Graham McNeill). (See the previous part: The Horus Heresy by Dan Abnett). Their thunderous steps are guided by a complete lack of political correctness: fully armored, they crush anyone in THE UNIVERSE who is slightly different, or not human enough. Or perhaps human enough, just happens to hold an opposite opinion.

To start, the space marines smack down a few thousand living dead underground, during which Horus himself gets injured. As a result, the entire fleet deflates like a dried prune because they view their beloved leader as a demigod (and truth be told, after a while, you also get swept up in this incredible enthusiasm and start to admire him) even though this semi-divine being sometimes behaves like a narcissistic goose. One of the problems with False Gods is precisely this swooning, completely devoid of common sense respect that the guardsmen have towards Horus. And the way Horus turns towards himself, and who out of sheer pride and awareness of his own invincibility can walk into the most transparent trap. Yes, yes, at this point, you also start to wonder if the emperor’s little son is really the most suitable person to lead a fleet?

The title of the series is, of course, “The Heresy of Horus.” The second part jumps right into the thick of things because the main conflict revolves around Horus getting angry with the Emperor, his beloved and respected daddy, up until now. The quality of the conflict is somewhat diminished by the fact that it mainly plays out on a metaphysical level, specifically within Horus’s MIND. Horus’s attitude (who is, you know, a (BIG-)grown man) seems somewhat childish. He gets offended in advance because Daddy maybe wants to become a god sometime LATER; so surely he won’t care about him afterwards. Oh, and there’s a lot of bureaucracy too. That’s it. This is quite a thin foundation for a 50+ part book series.

From here on out, in the not particularly exciting remaining part of False Gods, you can agonize over whether Horus, who is essentially just a vain and arrogant jerk, will become a vain, arrogant, and EVIL jerk without any transition, based on a few silly visions. The fleet, apart from a few unlucky guys who get stuck outside the circle, will go along with him without a fuss, just like the legions followed the charismatic, emperor-rebelling generals in the Roman Empire.

In False Gods, there are also a few remembrancer leading a debauched lifestyle, who are actually just pebbles, ground-pounders, no one knows why they are with the fleet, and they just trail along after the events. When an ugly monster crawls out of the warp to devour a few of them, you just shrug it off. Bon appétit!

The quality of Graham McNeill’s writing is average, although sometimes a bit heavy-handed, and the characters often get unreasonably angry more often than necessary, but there’s not much of a problem with it. The main problem lies with the story: it all seems unprepared and off-the-cuff, like in a soap opera. If you keep reading this series, there can only be one reason for it: you’re curious (damn curiosity!) about what will happen to the noble Captain Loken, who is about the only character left in the story worth rooting for.

6.3/10

False Gods (The Horus Heresy #2) by Graham McNeill – Book Review
416 pages, Paperback
Published in 2006 by Black Library

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Book Review

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A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Book Cover

If the first chapter’s improbability, where Amor Towles’ protagonist jests with his humor-prone Bolshevik compatriots, doesn’t put you off, and the book’s verbosity doesn’t immediately deter with its many twisty and winding sentences right from the start, then suddenly you find yourself beginning to like Alexander Ilyich Rostov, this charming and kind-hearted bohemian. Although you might have started with the assumption that “A Gentleman in Moscow” is sure to be some romantic affair, full of whining, but then again, it’s not.

We’re in 1922, by the way. Ah, the finest years of communism! Wait, scratch that: The count is declared a class enemy and is sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life, confined to a attic room in the Metropol Hotel. Reluctantly, he has to start assimilating into the world of work.

As a reader, you might not tolerate all the babble, feel annoyed by the verbosity, and get chills from the unnecessary, unwarranted, and superfluous use of adjectives. I’m exactly the same way too! I’ll tell you that clearly, straight, plain, and openly. Nevertheless, I must admire with genuine astonishment when, for example, in “A Gentleman in Moscow”, the relationship between goulash and a type of wine is compared to the not overly sunny relationship between Achilles and Hector, and the metaphor then happily leaps onto a Trojan war chariot from there.

And then there are Montaigne’s essays, the Nizhny Novgorod apple cultivation, and family anecdotes in abundance, but all done with such elegance that it’s very difficult to extricate yourself from their influence. (Moreover, since Amor Towles is obviously a lover of Russian culture, after a while you find yourself surprised, deciding that you will definitely tackle War and Peace for the second time, which you abandoned thirty years ago when you got completely lost in the forest of Russian names.)

This verbosity, however, certainly won’t appeal to everyone. If you’re already annoyed by it at the beginning, it’s better to leave this book alone.

However, if you continue reading, you may feel that “A Gentleman in Moscow” is the MOST PLEASANT novel that has come your way lately: it exudes cheer, goodwill, and disarming humanity, despite being set in a dark era. Even towards the absurdities of Bolshevism, it is mainly addressed with gentle irony. The few chapters where it speaks more directly, such as the one about the Ukrainian famine, stands out from the novel like sore thumb.

And how long does the admiration last? Precisely until little Sofia appears on the pages of the book. After this, the count’s story visibly ends, but Towles’s book unfortunately continues – although it would have been advisable to end it with a masterful stroke. Instead, the focus shifts to Sofia, and indeed her story is much less interesting: a series of trivial, sometimes entirely boring and sentimental scenes. Strangely, even Count Rostov’s quirks resurface. But if you’ve made it this far, you probably won’t abandon the story, which becomes livelier once again towards the very end and turns into a more subdued espionage tale. Still, it slips down from a much higher rating to a

6.8/10.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
462 pages, Paperback
Published in 2019 by Penguin Books

Closed for Winter by Jørn Lier Horst – Book Review

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Closed for Winter by Jørn Lier Horst – Book Cover

Haven’t read any Scandinavian crime novels lately? No problem, they’re getting worse as the serious authors’ works run dry and they start shoving second-rate writers in your face. But hey, listen up, Jorn Lier Horst’s book “Closed for Winter” won Norway’s most prestigious literary award in 2011. Does that mean anything? Seems like it only means these Fjordlings are completely handing out their prestigious awards to utterly average books…

You read it, you read it, and you’re just about to mark it as boring as hell, but then you realize that somehow, a few pages in, you’re getting into it. Although not too twisty, it focuses more on depicting the nitty-gritty police work, and it specifically ensures that nothing happens to make you bite your nails to the quick with excitement, yet it’s complex enough to keep you from putting it down.

Horst’s crime novel is sometimes a bit on the nose, and the occasional clumsy sentence slips in, but there’s no overwrought soul-searching and tiresome lamenting, which are fundamental ingredients of Scandinavian crime novels. It’s just regular folks investigating an average, and later somewhat more significant, case.

It also helps that Jorn Lier Horst’s detective, Wisting, is a likable average guy who hasn’t become jaded by his work, remaining empathetic and kind-hearted, just like you and me – and this is quite a refreshing exception among all the cynical, alcoholic, and manic-depressive detectives. You might be skeptical now, but Wisting’s girlfriend and daughter are also completely normal people whom you’d welcome into your own family – Kurt Wallander and Erlendur detectives (see: Arnaldur Indridason: Reykjavik Nights) from Sweden and Iceland are undoubtedly snarling at them with jealousy-twisted faces.

It’s also certain that by about halfway through „Closed for Winter”, you’ll figure out who the mole is. I even guessed the killer a few chapters before the end, and I’m not one to usually figure these things out. And with that, I just want to point out that Horst skillfully avoids leaving you dumbfounded by the solution.

7/10

Closed for Winter (William Wisting #7) by Jørn Lier Horst
321 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published in 2013 by Sandstone Press

Past Tense by Lee Child – Book Review

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Past Tense by Lee Child – Book Cover

The “Past Tense” is the 23rd Reacher novel. When I stumbled upon Lee Child about 20 years ago, it was almost like a revelation. Well, maybe not that, but damn, it was good. After that, no matter how hard I tried with any other similar bestselling author, you can imagine the result. None of them came close. Not even in the ballpark. It was all mediocre crap from Linwood Barclay to Michael Robotham.

Twenty-three parts of roughly similar quality in a book series is really something. Hungarian national pride, the Leslie L. Lawrence series, became a parody of itself around the sixth installment. The first worrying signs for Lee Child started to emerge around the 20th installment. Of course, the series was always heavily coated with a kind of over-the-top feeling, which maybe isn’t bad until there’s a serious story behind it. This is missing now, for the first time, in the book titled “Past Tense.” Reacher’s attempt to turn a sleepy family tree research into a investigation turns out to be so thin that the author is forced to insert a parallel subplot with new perspective characters. The young female member of the couple is just as masterful an analyst as the major himself. However, while you can believe Reacher in this, the girl is just not convincing.

The lack of a solid crime foundation makes the familiar motifs mostly seem tiresomely contrived. The meticulous description of things that are usually mundane in investigative work can sometimes be mind-numbing. For example, the author elaborates on the structure and use of a computer mouse. Thank you very much, major, we’ve been using it daily for almost forty years! You also incredulously observe Reacher having to find out such trivial matters as where random supporting characters are going to sneak off for a little hanky-panky.

Jack Reacher, the perpetually sniffing unbeatable dispenser of justice, becomes an ordinary mortal as he handles official matters: and shows a great deal of insensitivity, such as gleefully using up poor Reverend Burke’s entire phone credit; or looking completely idiotic while demonstrating his special skill, – yes, just like Mr. Vekker – constant mental timekeeping.

To make matters worse, he routinely beats up a few disagreeable douches just like Tarzan (see Tarzan and the Leopard Men). Because, much to your regret, it slowly becomes apparent that Reacher, in fact, is a violent character who constantly abuses his physical superiority, sticking his nose into other people’s business whether they like it or not.

If you devoured the pages of the previous books, well, you won’t with “Past Tense”. This is the weakest part of the Jack Reacher series so far, and a warning sign for the sad future ahead. 🙁

6.9/10

Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23) by Lee Child
382 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2018 by Delacorte Press

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Other work(s) of the author:
Die Trying by Lee Child

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler – Book Review

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Dawn by Octavia E. Butler - Book Cover

The Earth’s got a tough deal. Octavia E. Butler’s “Dawn” serves up a background story where it’s not global warming or some similar modern catastrophe that puts us on the skids, as we’re just starting to experience firsthand, but rather the good ol’ Americans and Soviets doing the orthodox thing, nuking each other. Small detail. Here come the aliens, scooping up quite a few survivors. After a few centuries, they pull them out of cryo, and give them a choice: you can start afresh on the planet and mess it up again, assuming you agree to bear common offspring with us.

Big question: would you be down for a little hanky-panky with a tentacled alien if it meant the survival of your species? Hell yeah? Bucket on their heads and let’s go?

Of course, it’s not that simple. According to Butler’s “Dawn’s” somewhat sluggish story, the aliens’ obsession is the shared offspring. Just because. There isn’t really a sensible explanation for it, just the occasional clumsy excuse or exaggerated enthusiasm for our restless species’ gene pool.

From the closed spaces of the alien’s plant-based spaceship (haha! – in Saga, this might actually work), you initially associate more with chamber drama than sci-fi, and when the awakened characters multiply, you might think of a cross between The Real World and Naked and Afraid. There’s a bit too much soul-searching going on. And to top it off, the space manipulators, alongside their calm indifference, mostly try to achieve their goals through emotional blackmail.

And humans… humans are, well, humans. They are jerks. Impatient, clueless, and as usual, bickering; and whoever feels stronger than others also throws a few punches. But eventually – presumably against Octavia E. Butler’s intentions – you realize you can’t fully condemn them either, because in their sly, passive-aggressive way, the aliens are just as big jerks. And dirty MOLESTERS too.

Hard sci-fi? Yeah, my ass! “Dawn” is more like a promising basic idea clumsily unfolded, resembling at times a better-executed amateur novel.

6.5/10

Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) by Octavia E. Butler
248 pages, Paperback
Published in 1997 by Warner Books

UPDATE: Warning! The sequel goes even more off the rails. Just read the damn blurb, and you’ll rate it below 5/10 sight unseen…

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon – Book Review

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Boy's Life by Robert McCammon - Book Cover

Well, it’s already clear from the introduction that you’re dealing with a verbose novel. But if that doesn’t scare you off too much, then everything’s okay, because the rest of “Boy’s Life” is not THAT dire. (Except for the very end: those three closing words are no small feat.)

Each chapter of the book is like a little novella. Some are better done (wasps), some less so (the UFOs), and by page 100, the story is still just at the exposition. And you’re waiting, thinking, “Okay, so what’s going to come out of this?” Then suddenly you realize that nothing special will. Then you also realize that it’s not such a huge problem; “Boy’s Life” doesn’t want to be anything more than just a boy’s and a town’s life through the former’s perspective, roughly over a year in the American South in 1964. But it’s certain that you’d be a wreck if all this happened to you in just one miserable year.

The chapters move the plot forward particularly slowly, and although some feel completely unnecessary and overwritten (Welcome, Lucifer or Get around), sometimes an event only makes sense much later – or has an impact on the characters. In short, there are also some that, besides being unnecessary and verbose, are also quite clumsy (Green-Feathered Hat).

Occasionally, the text indulges in commonplace preaching (both dream sequences).

However, the character portrayal in “Boy’s Life” is, hey, very well done; whoever emerges in the story is completely unique and memorable, and some characters are downright MAGNIFICENT, see for example, The Demon, the teenage monster, or The Lady, Vernon, or even the cosmic-paced Mr. Lightfoot, and you JUST CAN’T PUT THE BOOK DOWN because you can’t wait to meet them again. It’s rare to read a book where even the most minor character is so clearly identifiable. Also, the seemingly exceptional insight into human nature, from which the former presumably arises, is a rarity – thus, suddenly Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” or G. R. R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” series come to mind, where the same can be observed (although in the case of the latter, the situation is made more difficult by the hundreds of bustling characters).

Robert McCammon’s book is mainly a young adult adventure novel, but not at all childish, because it speaks in the voice of a retrospective adult, with occasional glimpses of good-natured irony and mature wisdom between the lines. The text is pervaded by mystery, the typical Southern themes like racism, the supernatural world, and voodoo. But it also contains motifs of westerns and psychological drama – and of course, the crime genre, which frames the whole story, although this part is the thinnest, the most boring, and the least successful… when the parrot speaks, you immediately figure out where it’s all going.

In the infinitely sentimental (watch out, don’t cry!) and, needless to say, overly long epilogue, McCammon even sends some of the characters off in such a way that they immediately step out of their own characters (Gordo, Chile, and the poor Demon too).

And if this book has so many flaws, then why did it become such a freaking huge success?

Perhaps because “Boy’s Life” turns nostalgically to a time when family was even more defining, when the universal validity of love for each other was more pronounced. When kids were still kids and played outside, instead of sitting indoors in front of various screens, while everything slowly turning plastic around them. In the first place their stupid brains!

7.6/10

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
610 pages, Paperback
Published in 2008 by Gallery Books

Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan – Book Review

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Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan – Book Cover

If they compare Narine Abgarjan’s book to “One Hundred Years of Solitude” on the cover, you’re forced to do the same, measuring it here and there; for example, the part of the text about the rooster isn’t quite right, but when the mold consumes everything, it’s entirely as if García Márquez himself wrote it. Then around page 40-50, you realize it’s entirely pointless to compare anything; “Three Apples Fell from the Sky” stands on its own, thank you very much. Granted, it doesn’t condense the history of half a continent into 100 years, but rather narrates about 90 years of an Armenian mountain village, but it does so in such a beautiful, uniformly undulating style that you’d be tempted to move there—unless you fear being permanently cut off from the internet and having to work your butt off for your daily bread.

Anatolia and Vasily, the two lonely widowers, are being pushed towards each other by their acquaintances. And while you wait for Vasily to finally make a move—because his chosen one, who expects nothing more from life, is just lying down to die—the story weaves around these characters, jumping back and forth in time, painting the lives of two or three generations of ancestors, relatives, friends, and neighbors. Us Hungarians, there’s no doubt we’ve had our fair share of trouble in our history. Well, Armenians have had about five times as much. Still, the national tragedy, the “great massacre” is only hinted at in two throwaway sentences; the emphasis is far from the trials and tribulations.

“Three Apples Fell from the Sky” is a paean to the ancestors, to the village, to the peasant way of life in the positive sense, which has largely disappeared there as well, just like here. The style, while not magical realism, comes close to it; it’s fairy-tale-like, but not really a fairy tale. What might throw it off its course a bit is when the narrative parts are outweighed by dialogues, like Vasily’s urban adventures towards the end of the story; those are a bit off: Vasily couldn’t really be this simple-minded. But you easily believe that more or less everything could have happened like this. (The supernatural elements surrounding two other characters seamlessly fit into the story.)

Meanwhile, the best supporting character is a dog: Patro.

You can jot down the food too, to check them on some recipe website. (I got curious about Armenian yogurt soup.)

And you can marvel at how in a community, the “May the neighbor’s cow die too!” principle isn’t the most characteristic, as it is with us, but rather, if someone needs help, they’ll lend a hand. (And you say this even though a clueless douchebag and his annoying, nosy, cauliflower-eared, bitchy wife are your neighbors, may the good Lord kick them in the rear!!)

There’s a lesson too: it’s never too late to find happiness. Even if it sounds cheesy. And this lesson is also wrapped in quite a bitter pill; sentimentality isn’t really typical of this novel. Not like with the short stories following the novel, which, well, let’s say they feel like typical soppy, women’s writing. But you read through them to speculate about who corresponds to whom in the novel, and in the process, you find yourself feeling quite sad.

8/10

Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan
256 pages, Paperback
Published in 2020 by Oneworld Publications