"I appreciate that many of the stories are interlinked"

Excellent. Some stories are funny, but even those are touched with poignancy. Some are heartbreaking. All are enlightening, fascinating, well worth reading. I do highly recommend this book and just wish I'd been able to do so when it was first released.

Of course it's not too late. Go get it now!

I appreciate that many of the stories are interlinked, referencing towns, events, and even characters from others. But even with those additional clues I'm not sure I understood the author's intent in all the stories.

For example, I wonder about the Roma mother, and whether she'll actually ever get around to helping her daughter to find a way to a better life. The ending seems intentionally ambiguous....

The story about brothers definitely made an impact on me. The ending, gosh. But before that, I loved this bit: "I lived in his shadow for years, never meeting his expectations. Anton always looked down at me, I thought. This bothered me greatly, more now than before." What an intelligent, and valuable, insight, that children can overlook slights & other hardships, but adults can remember them with pain. Think about that.

A character says: "Today, antisemitism is virtually absent in the country, and most Bulgarians have a very favorable opinion of Israel." I wonder if that's still true, as the far-right takes over many European offices, and as the war expands past Gaza on its first anniversary.

I hope to share this marvelous book with some of the members of my book club.

Review posted on Goodreads