A review by aliwhaley
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

3.0

I forgot to review this at the time, but from memory I think I was just a little lost and therefore a little bored. I’m always bad at picking up political subtext (or indeed caring about it when I do see it). I enjoyed the personal relationships of the people and the penguin, but the book was about a post-soviet climate, and the lying and the never quite knowing the truth, and slightly surreal too, and I just wasn’t following the political plot well enough to really get the full impact of it. I felt “gasp” moments come but I didn’t gasp.

One reviewer said that this would have packed more punch as a short story, and I agree.