Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for my free digital ARC! 

I absolutely tore through this one, the prose and translation (by Leah Janeczko) was snappy, easy to devour, funny yet not lacking in depth or resonance. The majority of the book is an interrogation of memory, leaving you feeling slightly breathless by the end and slightly suspicious of everything you’ve just read.

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Vero, our narrator, had an unusual childhood with her highly anxious mother, paranoid father and genius older brother. She reflects on their childhood spent indoors, forbidden from anything slightly dangerous including learning to ride a bike or swim. After Chernobyl, they spent years only eating canned goods out of their father’s fear of contamination. In the present day, Vero is an author and writing a new novel, this novel, about family.

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One of those books where there’s not a lot going on, but it’s somehow unputdownable. It’s mainly lots of anecdotes from various stages of Vero’s life, alternatively hilarious then dark then back to hilarious again. There’s a frankness to the writing which felt very refreshing, even as you’re aware that the narrator is freely experimenting with the definition of the ‘truth’. It felt like it was drawing a lot on that idea that every time you recall a memory, the memory becomes a tiny bit more warped every time. We begin to fabricate, build upon our own memories until it’s practically impossible even for us to say what’s real and what’s become more like fiction.

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I’m not sure how much of it is actually autobiographical, but either way I thoroughly enjoyed it!!