nastya ’s Reviews > Endling > Status Update

Or, another way to end it: each missile shot from Russia would stop midair, spin around, pummel into its exact point of origin.


reva stole this dream from me how dare she! it helps me to fall asleep often.

She told him about her deal with his granddaughter, the cold math of the agreement to exchange the remaining foreigners plus him, the grandfather, for her lost mother.
“You just made that up,” he said. Nastia blinked. “I didn’t.”
“Sounds a lot like the novel my granddaughter’s been trying to cobble together. She mailed me a draft, fed through one of those internet translation machines.

“And how do you propose the enemy should look, young man? A swastika flag in one hand, a Mein Kampf in the other? The enemy is more subtle now. Hides in plain sight. Inside every Ukrainian.”

what an amateur! personal icon of bandera and sims 3!

In the first year of the war, when I felt guilty for crying (I’m not the one being bombed!) and then guilty for not crying (Think of those being bombed!), I wondered, uselessly, who had a proper claim to grief. I knew expats who mourned dutifully, refusing social engagements, their faces ashen as if U fallen. I also knew friends back in Ukraine who were hiding in basements and still hadn’t stopped cracking jokes.

Sometimes I wonder if she and I are going insane, living two realities at once—the explosions peppering phone calls from Ukraine alongside the dinner parties in Vancouver with laughing, smiling friends in wrinkle-free fabrics who don’t mention the war.

the moment we left Ukraine and got to Canada and diaspora life, the book instantly improved! almost as if the author has deep connection to the subject and is much more engaging! at least it became readable to me! A few quotes:

I know it's a bit too early but I am not feeling this one. I don't like the writing, nothing feels recognizable, and I have no desire to keep reading. I am not the audience, but I wish Maria all the best on this award circuit. Don't feel like this book will survive past this booker.

What the hell am I doing reading a new release after vowing “never again,” you ask? Apparently risking a very bad time. You’re reading this book because it’s written by a Canadian with Ukrainian roots, about a country that’s in the news. I’m reading it as a Westerner writing for other Westerners about a current hot topic. We are not the same.
p.s. I am on page 4, and it already feels fishy.