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Various Pets Alive & Dead (2012)

by Marina Lewycka(Favorite Author)

3.32 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1905490917 (ISBN13: 9781905490912)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Fig Tree

review 1: Clara is a teacher. Her brother Serge is a successful banker. Their parents should be proud. Except their parents are former hippies and they think banks are exploring the proletariat. (Teaching is fine, though.)Add to this a complicated web of relationships that includes, but is not limited to: Serge's ambitious and mean coworkers, most notably his philandering boss and the Ukrainian he falls for; the men, women and children who lived in their communist experiment of a house, sharing pots, pans and paternity confusions; Clara's rude students and gorgeous new boss, etc., etc.Although sometimes messy, the story is well written, in short chapters alternating between main characters. The characters themselves are believable (or, at least, as believable as possible in the slig... morehtly ridiculous situations) and at least partially relatable.But still... I'm not quite sure why it didn't captivate me. It was engaging and funny, but not the "irresistible comic romp" that the first page advertised. Maybe I should just stop reading the cover. I was also annoyed at the epilogue, which oh-so-conveniently wraps up the loose ends. It just seemed lazy.
review 2: This is a laugh out loud book, like Marina's previous three. All the characters have their own little quirks, even the minor characters.Serg and Clara and Oolie have been brought up in a commune and now as adults want a more conventional life but it seems they cannot escape from the past, especially when their parents Doro and Marcus decide that after all these years they are getting married. They want to invite other members from the commune who have now all gone their own way. Serg is now working for a bank (though his parents think he's still doing a PhD at Cambridge) and Clara is a school teacher trying to make a difference while Oolie, the adopted daughter with Downs Syndrome is trying to convince Doro that she wants to be independent and move into her own flat.The technical stuff about the banking system (during the crash) rather goes by me but the stories behind the characters are great and so individual. There are lots of scenarios where misunderstandings just made me laugh so much. It is always such a pleasure to read Marina's books because they are so entertaining and witty. less

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