Reviews - Lucky Breaks | The StoryGraph

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72 reviews for:

3.5, rounding down because the reading experience was difficult.

I really loved the idea of this book and certain vignettes were really incredible. "Lena in Danger" was probably my favorite, and I also loved the cosmetologist one and the horoscopes one. I did really enjoy the short format of the stories, but a lot of them started to bleed together, and I think the quality of writing was literally lost in the translation. The language itself was somewhat abrupt and didn't flow nicely, which made it hard to follow. This is unrelated to my rating of the book, but the font size was incredibly small in the copy of the book I had. Like size 8. Who can read that? It felt like a strain both to physically read this and to continuously follow along and reset myself after each story. Also I hate to say it but for me, the photos did not add much. I think they may have if they were reproduced larger with better quality. Or, I can imagine this entire book as an art installation, with stories and photos, and I think that would be an ideal way to consume this.

I did like the structure though, and the way the stories of war were both realistic and fanciful. Reading this also made me curious about Ukrainian history, something I know next to nothing about. And I think also reading this in light of the current invasion of Ukraine added another layer to it. I think if I had really taken my time with this, maybe read only a couple stories a night, and had 100% focus, I would have loved it a lot more. But unfortunately I neither had the energy or patience to do that this week and needed to get it returned to the library.