Trashy
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Trashy, badly written, unexplored 1D characters, Overhyped.
As well crafted as this review.
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Good but patchy
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This is a strange novel. Old Ukrainian guy living in England falls for Ukrainian con-woman who wants the good life in the UK for herself and her son. Old guy's daughters are outraged because the woman is a slutty, slovenly blond who treats their father like dirt and has lovers on the side. Meanwhile, he is writing a history of tractors, chunks of which are thrown into the novel, together with flashbacks of what happened in wartime Eastern Europe. It's a somewhat disjointed novel. I admit to very quickly begin skipping all the stuff on the tractors and the wartime reminisces. As others have said they added nothing to the novel - or else I was missing something deep, although in this case it must have been buried very deep! I wound up thinking about the whole novel, 'Well what was the point of that?'
I didn't think the book was particularly funny. It didn't raise one smile.
However, I did find the modern day soap opera parts entertaining and they certainly held my interest and for me were enjoyable and the reason the book gets the 3 stars that it does. I liked the description of Valentina's eye colour as being like 'syrup' I could envisage it immediately. Indeed many of the descriptions were evocative and immediate. Sometimes the descriptions of the squalor were so strong that I found my nose wrinkling. That HAS to be good story telling!
Verdict. 3 stars for all the positive points and the two missing stars reflect the areas where I was less impressed.
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Highly recommended
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I bought this on a whim, and boy, how lucky was I? I really loved the book, and am reading it now, month after I bought it, for the second time, it is just as enjoyable!
Marina Lewycka's second book 'Two Caravans' is just as good btw.
Buy it, you will not regret it. :)
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'You dried shrivelled relic of ancient goat turd!'
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An absolutely hilarious book. It arouses anger, and surprisingly a great deal of humour, from the injustice of a senile 84 year old man being manipulated by a scheming, narcissistic Ukrainian woman/'criminal slut', Valentina. She wants to marry him so she can live and work in the UK whilst milking him for every penny he has. The frustration of the narrator, the elderly man's daughter, Nadia at the unfolding events makes for incredibly funny and gripping read. The book is also centers on the reconciliation of Nadia and her sister as they join forces, after 2 years of cold silence, to fight a common enemy: the evil Valentina.
Comedy is usually at its best when it has a grounding in something dark in reality. As such, it's usually very difficult to do. But this novel pulls it off magnificently; the abuse of the elderly, asylum seekers and background history steeped in blood and despair. A rare treat.
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Mildly amusing but not earth shattering
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This book was just ok in my opinion. I did find it mildly amusing in parts and I did want to know what would happen to the family in the end but I wasn't hooked. Perhaps there weren't any characters i could really relate to or care about.
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Trashy
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Trashy, badly written, unexplored 1D characters, Overhyped.
As well crafted as this review.
|
|
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Good but patchy
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This is a strange novel. Old Ukrainian guy living in England falls for Ukrainian con-woman who wants the good life in the UK for herself and her son. Old guy's daughters are outraged because the woman is a slutty, slovenly blond who treats their father like dirt and has lovers on the side. Meanwhile, he is writing a history of tractors, chunks of which are thrown into the novel, together with flashbacks of what happened in wartime Eastern Europe. It's a somewhat disjointed novel. I admit to very quickly begin skipping all the stuff on the tractors and the wartime reminisces. As others have said they added nothing to the novel - or else I was missing something deep, although in this case it must have been buried very deep! I wound up thinking about the whole novel, 'Well what was the point of that?'
I didn't think the book was particularly funny. It didn't raise one smile.
However, I did find the modern day soap opera parts entertaining and they certainly held my interest and for me were enjoyable and the reason the book gets the 3 stars that it does. I liked the description of Valentina's eye colour as being like 'syrup' I could envisage it immediately. Indeed many of the descriptions were evocative and immediate. Sometimes the descriptions of the squalor were so strong that I found my nose wrinkling. That HAS to be good story telling!
Verdict. 3 stars for all the positive points and the two missing stars reflect the areas where I was less impressed.
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United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada