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I was bowled over by this book. Initially suspect, put off by the rambling stream-of-conscious writing style and the (over?) abundance of cultural references, I was about to put the book down, except that I had received it as a gift so I felt a bit obliged to stick it out.

Glad I did. It does seem a bit over-written but considering that the protagonist is, himself, exploding with loss, change - physical, cultural, linguistic... - and seemingly in the process of going mad, the dramatic, explosive bursts of what sometimes appears simply to be chaotic blasts of expressiveness makes sense. And, when I learned to read between and around, as well as with the lines, I opened up a lot more to the book.

Reading the reviews by native Ukrainian language speakers, I do wish I could have sensed the excitement in the author's use of his new written language. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the read, and I think I learned a good deal about the depth of the divide between the Russian-speaking (leaning) and Ukraine-speaking/Western-leaning peoples, and the complexity of trying to absorb and reconcile the two.