A review by _maia3_
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

dark emotional mysterious reflective
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Considering I quite like plot-light books and don't care awfully for mystery, this book suited me perfectly. I found the narrator endearing and continued reading more out of an interest in her rather than the murders. 

Which was fortunate, as honestly I think this book has been mislabeled. This isn't a typical genre fiction book - more like a fictional memoir concerning the events of a mystery rather than a detective-culprit story.  I did feel a little cheated when this clicked, but again, the mystery wasn't my first priority anyway.

The entire setting toes the line between being real and unreal, and this adds to the overall atmosphere of the unreliable narrator who is, technically, correct. To explore morality, lines between humans and animals are intentionally blurred whilst making police and church corruption blatant - it felt very fable-like whilst also being realistic.

Read this book if you enjoy odd, liminal little stories with morality as a central theme.
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