Reviews with content warning for Death - Styr din plog över de dödas ben

hmm. i really don’t know what to think about this book. this is one of the rare times where i read other reviews simply because i don’t know how to describe my thoughts on this.

i really think my expectations for this were set incredibly high, and this book didn’t meet them. i mean it’s in NYTs top 100 books of the 21st century (voted by the public) so i expected something….. More. i mean the author won a nobel prize! i expected to be enthralled but instead i was mildly interested.

the main character felt one-note. after a while, her only talking about animals or astrology became frustrating. there felt as though there wasn’t much to her, until the penultimate chapter, but even then it couldn’t save my opinions of her throughout the story.

the plot seems to meander, not really doing too much. there’s a death, then the mc yaps about eccentric topics, a death occurs, and wash rinse repeat. i’m not really too big a fan of stories without a driving force, and it really just felt like i was reading one of those recipes online where the author writes 45 paragraphs before the actual recipe. like homegirl i don’t give a shit about how animals are murdering everyone… i just want you to be solving this shit! i was expecting this to be a real mystery, but it felt like the ‘plot’ of the deaths took a back seat, which was really odd. i did find some things the mc talked about interesting philosophically, but then it was peppered with the words of a mad man. idk i didn’t find i had any feelings towards the mc, therefore i wanted to rip my hair out every time she rambled.

this book felt like it was ‘stream of consciousness’, and sorry i can’t fucking stand books like that!!! i at least need SOMETHING to connect the book. although the deaths were that link, and the book is marketed towards the mystery element, it felt as though they were brushed past instead to focus on the 7th paragraph about how the mc hates animal cruelty. like i’m with u girl but at the same time you have no discernible personality outside of that.

i really tried to like this, and at times i was tangentially intrigued by the book, most of the time i was just like “….meh”. i really hope this is just an issue of this plot and not of the actual writer because if it’s the latter…… girl.

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mariebrunelm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Dans la froideur de l’hiver polonais, la vieille Mme Doucheyko vit seule, entre ses promenades routinières, son intérêt pour l’astrologie et les traductions de William Blake qu'elle compose avec un ancien élève. Elle croit dur comme fer au pouvoir de la nature, si bien que lorsqu'un chasseur notoire du voisinage est retrouvé mort avec un os de biche coincé en travers de la gorge, elle y voit la main de la justice, voire quelque chose de plus mystérieux encore. Puis c'est un deuxième cadavre qui est découvert.

Munissez-vous d’une boisson chaude pour apprécier ce roman glacé, teinté de gothique. Je m’y suis beaucoup attachée au personnage principal, mais sachant combien j’aime les protagonistes âgées, ce n’est pas si étonnant. Ce livre m’attirait pour son atmosphère fantastique et je n’ai certes pas été déçue de ce côté-là, même si c'est plus une histoire d’ambiance que de faits. En revanche, je ne m'attendais pas à l'humour assez noir qui parcourt le texte, porté par la voix de sa narratrice, et cela m’a beaucoup plus également. J'ai ressenti une légère rigidité de la langue qui est due, je pense, à la traduction, mais cela ne m'a pas empêchée de passer un bon moment entre les pages de ce roman de saison.

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alyssatuininga's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.25

A beautifully written, quirky meandering book. I absolutely loved the main character (except maybe for her interest in Astrology which I mostly skimmed). The prose is gorgeous and I loved her writing style. The characters are wonderfully weird and the plot is downright crazy. I did find that the plot meandered a bit and it was a slower read for me. Overall a wonderful book and I enjoyed the characters so very much.

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breadbummer's review against another edition

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funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Can we please get more books narrated by weird old women??? Because of this type of main character, I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this. I'll admit, it did seem kind of slow to me in some parts but, even at these sections, just like with Duszejko's love of astrology, paying attention to the tiniest details is key to figuring out what's going on. I definitely had my suspicions as the book progressed, but I was still glued to the page when everything was revealed.

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sidekicksam's review against another edition

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funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Janina Duszjeko lives reclusively, almost at the border of society. She's very much into Astrology, predicts people's future date of deaths based on the location of the planets on the moment of birth, and is generally considered... colourful. When one of her two neighbours dies and the other asks her to help dress him before his body stiffens, she sets in motion a series of peculiar events that affect the people around her..

This book is an interesting character study, with vivid world-building and a witty pen to add a little extra dazzle. The first scene is set in mid-winter Poland, which was such a different vibe from the sunny weather I was reading it in, that I almost DNF'ed it to finish it in the winter time. In the end, I was happy I stayed on this weird ride of a book, because I giggled multiple times at the character of Janina and her quirks. The plot is predictable, but I did really enjoy reading it.

My favourite passage:
It's hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in translation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he's drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. This capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character's psychological understanding. I think Oddball was suffering from this Ailment.

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carojust's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I'd read Olga Tokarczuk write about paint drying.

This was so much fun -- unreliable narrator, small clues everywhere, small town characters and cozy soups, forest animals and bugs. And as an astrology girlie, I couldn't not enjoy the extensive musings on birth charts and aspects; I knew these parts would lose a lot of people, and that's what's so incredibly ingenious. This all created a mystical world guided by the laws of nature, and our narrator the omniscient and moral light in the cold night.

I really love that this narrator is an older woman, who reminds us constantly how she's dismissed as a lunatic, and largely ignored and forgotten by the community. It's especially brilliant in the unraveling.

I highly recommend this if you are interested in translated fiction, sleuthy mysteries, and really beautiful, intelligent writing.

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andrewhatesham's review against another edition

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For me, this is too slow paced, and I don't like the main character that much. I only read 28 pages but I can just tell that I probably won't enjoy this.

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stardust_heidi's review against another edition

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dark funny informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Read this book as part of the StoryGraph genre challenge. It was a ride, that’s for sure. The main character was wildly interesting with a sharp, blunt wit that made me cackle at times. There was lots of introspective meandering between major plot points, with endless astrology calculations and righteous animal rights messaging. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it dragged a bit at times and was occasionally hard to follow. I love the genre challenge because it definitely forces me out of my comfort zone at times. 😅

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