It took me over a week (!) to read this tiny book - and I was on holidays!
"Bottled Goods" was short- and long-listed for a number of prizes and I fail to grasp why. It is a short read told in flash style, like lists and little vignettes, set in Romania during the Ceaușescu era (communism, Secret Service, comrades galore). About half of the novel feels like a realistic portrayal of ordinary life in the brutal and extraordinary society of Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania. Some chapters are narrated by the main heroine, Alina, who, together with her husband, tries to escape her Motherland. A couple of chapters towards the end of the novel give us a glimpse of the brutal reality of Romania back in the Seventies of the last century.
There was a tiny drop of magic realism leaving me longing for more. All in all, this is a book which you would read and forget pretty quickly, despite the subject.
"Bottled Goods" is different, but not so great. Actually, it is not great at all.
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