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elaineruss's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book. Thought provoking, harrowing, blackly comic & just fantastic. Also, don't read if you're particularly fond of eating chicken!
erdeaka's review against another edition
4.0
So, this is the second published book written by Marina Lewycka and also her second book I’ve read. After some other books interupting my reading it, now I’ve accomplished my mission to finish this terrific book. Yes, it is as great and smart as her first published novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.
Still talking and focusing on the paradoxical ideas of both capitalism and communism set in England (the land of capitalism) and the-imagined Ukraine, the story of this novel tells about the some immigrants, seemingly illegal, running along England in search of better life. However, they have to admit that they end up only in strawberry-picking land and tight up to tricky greedy evil agents.
There Irina, Andriy, Vitaly, Emmanuel, two Chinese girls from two different countries (China and Malaysia), Marta, Yola, and Tommaz. They all, still with dream of getting better life in a better Western world, live their lives as strawberry-pickers with low wage and many deductions. They have to willingly surrender their lives to the agent arranging thei lives there and sucking their blood (read: money).
Once they can escape, they have to face other challenges and problems surrounding illegal immigrant like them. Separated, desperate, almost caught up, running, all the times like wanted escaped prisoners. The characters of Irina and Andriy have also to endure the inevitable love between them, the love that seems to be hindered by their different points of view about their country Ukraine, which has turned their back to communism.
Like A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, this book is so thought-triggering and painfully laughable. The core of the idea is obviously how, we people living in this world, has been caught between capitalism and communism. It’s like there’s no way out. In capitalism you will be zombies, in communism you will be starving. It also gave me some kind of insights about how it feels like immigrating to England in the hope of getting what we once fancied, but the fact is so painful, especially when we have no legal relation.
This book is just another masterpiece of Marina Lewycka. Very thoughtful, very detail, very smart, very enlightening. I really like her language and how she represents the joke in a quite rude yet naturally funny way. Some people might see it as rubbish, but she is truly a genius author.
Still talking and focusing on the paradoxical ideas of both capitalism and communism set in England (the land of capitalism) and the-imagined Ukraine, the story of this novel tells about the some immigrants, seemingly illegal, running along England in search of better life. However, they have to admit that they end up only in strawberry-picking land and tight up to tricky greedy evil agents.
There Irina, Andriy, Vitaly, Emmanuel, two Chinese girls from two different countries (China and Malaysia), Marta, Yola, and Tommaz. They all, still with dream of getting better life in a better Western world, live their lives as strawberry-pickers with low wage and many deductions. They have to willingly surrender their lives to the agent arranging thei lives there and sucking their blood (read: money).
Once they can escape, they have to face other challenges and problems surrounding illegal immigrant like them. Separated, desperate, almost caught up, running, all the times like wanted escaped prisoners. The characters of Irina and Andriy have also to endure the inevitable love between them, the love that seems to be hindered by their different points of view about their country Ukraine, which has turned their back to communism.
Like A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, this book is so thought-triggering and painfully laughable. The core of the idea is obviously how, we people living in this world, has been caught between capitalism and communism. It’s like there’s no way out. In capitalism you will be zombies, in communism you will be starving. It also gave me some kind of insights about how it feels like immigrating to England in the hope of getting what we once fancied, but the fact is so painful, especially when we have no legal relation.
This book is just another masterpiece of Marina Lewycka. Very thoughtful, very detail, very smart, very enlightening. I really like her language and how she represents the joke in a quite rude yet naturally funny way. Some people might see it as rubbish, but she is truly a genius author.
pj_'s review against another edition
challenging
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
carlos1979's review
The story didn’t grip me as it had too many characters, many chapters just a rehash of the previous so much so that you put the book down so often it’s difficult to pick it back up again.
kategolledge's review against another edition
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
nnastia's review against another edition
3.0
Ok, this one was slightly more interesting and definitely touched on important and nuanced social issues in a down-to-earth way. I struggled empathizing with the main characters Andrii and Irina for most of the book which made their love story hard to root for. Sure, it was better than a lot of the alternatives presented, but didn't seem too believable.
My biggest qualm is that I still don't find it as funny as advertised. I am definitely not devoid of humor, not even dark humor, but I found myself tensing up when I was hoping for some comic relief.
Kudos to writing about the lower than minimum wage workers, trafficking, exploitation in a non-academic way, pulling on heart strings, and leaving you hoping for systemic changes.
My biggest qualm is that I still don't find it as funny as advertised. I am definitely not devoid of humor, not even dark humor, but I found myself tensing up when I was hoping for some comic relief.
Kudos to writing about the lower than minimum wage workers, trafficking, exploitation in a non-academic way, pulling on heart strings, and leaving you hoping for systemic changes.
louise_jb0's review
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
cerisarah's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.25
_dunno_'s review against another edition
3.0
Several years ago I listened to Lewycka read from this book and I thought I was going to like it a lot. It starts very promising, with a bunch of strawberry pickers in UK (mainly Eastern Europeans, but also African and Chinese, quite a diverse cast, Hollywood should learn from this, lol), but then they part ways and the novel goes in too many different directions ("too much plenty", to quote one of the characters), some people are dropped in the first third of the novel (really, what happened to the Chinese girls in Amsterdam?), other 3 around the middle, end we end up with just two of them for the last half. It’s like watching the last 4 seasons of Friends with only Ross and Rachel. Sort of.
However, the novel raises some very serious issues, like illegal immigrants working on the black market for less than minimum wage, improper work conditions, human traffic a.s.o. It’s also somewhat funny, if you enjoy linguistic humour, but if you consider reading anything by Marina Lewicka, you’d better choose [b: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian|828387|A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian|Marina Lewycka|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327935785s/828387.jpg|4240781].
However, the novel raises some very serious issues, like illegal immigrants working on the black market for less than minimum wage, improper work conditions, human traffic a.s.o. It’s also somewhat funny, if you enjoy linguistic humour, but if you consider reading anything by Marina Lewicka, you’d better choose [b: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian|828387|A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian|Marina Lewycka|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327935785s/828387.jpg|4240781].