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A complete joy to read, and surprisingly fast too. Smith's exhilarating writing, with lots of wordplay, artistic observations, and literary references, keeps my brain on its toes. The Brexit pall hanging over the story hits hard right now, with the anti-immigrant crackdown happening in the U.S. I'm very much looking forward to continuing with the rest of the quartet. Great audiobook narration by Melody Grove.

Very good historical fiction. Interesting to have it revolve around a real event - the 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory conference - but then have it focus less on the event itself and more on the pre-event thoughts and activities of three characters: Dan (a member of the IRA), Moose (disappointed but hopeful deputy general manager at the hotel), and Freya (Moose's teenage daughter). Well-written, insightful, and often funny.

A little uneven (it could have used more editing, especially toward the end), but overall I thought it was very good. The writing sparkled throughout most of the book. There was a chapter about 1/3 of the way through that switched to the father's perspective - his thoughts about being a parent, his job working with other immigrants at a chicken facility in Indiana, etc. - and it was quite moving. The book was also surprisingly funny, despite addressing some rather serious topics, like addiction/recovery and how to have a meaningful life (and death).

I enjoyed this a lot. For one thing, it's the first time that I've read a novel set in Ukraine. The metafictional aspect of the book was mentioned in several reviews/descriptions that I read; so I was aware of that and thought it might be distracting, but I actually found it to be powerful and charming - it dovetailed so well with the story (I mostly listened to the audiobook, so I got to hear the author read those brief sections). About halfway into it, I started to worry that it might veer too much into absurdity (mostly with some of the bachelor shenanigans), but then it didn't really do that. I also appreciated the humor. A number of the scenes with Pasha had me laughing out loud. And the palpable sense of wonder that it conveyed about the snails was great.