![]() ![]() While I appreciated the way this novel in pieces tried to create an impression of Alina's experience in an oppressive place, the novel didn't quite come together to me as it rushed over some emotionally complex situations and the fantastical elements of the story felt tacked on. Their relationship comes under strain as they feel pressure from the government and need to take radical measures to survive. But both Alina and her husband Liviu come under suspicion when his brother defects to the West. Like in the novel “Milkman” it's best to go unnoticed in this fractured society. In this hostile environment Alina can't even trust her mother. Together they form a portrait of this period of the 1970s rife with paranoia and fear of the secret services. ![]() They are a sequence of snippets (usually in the form of diary entries or lists) in its protagonist Alina's life within communist Romania. ![]() The short punchy chapters which make up Sophie Van Llewyn's “Bottled Goods” have the feel of flash fiction. ![]()
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