funny and touching story of two daughters whose father marries a much younger woman and chaos results. ( )

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is not a very promising title for a novel, but it does grab your attention, I'll give it that. I had passed this book up in bookstores and online several times in the past few years, but finally my curiosity got the best of me when I found it at a University Womens Ass'n book sale last year. And during Christmas week I finally picked it up and read it. What a wonderful book this is! I can easily understand why it has won prizes and been translated into over twenty languages. Because, although this is ostensibly a book about a Ukrainian immigrant family living in England, and about an octogenarian widower who falls for a thirty-something stacked blonde bombshell, and about a festering sibling rivalry between the man's two grown daughters, and about British bureaucracy and ... Well, enough, I suppose. The truth is, this is a wonderfully executed book about human nature itself. Nikolay, Valentina, Vera and Nadezhda are all characters who will resonate for a long time after you've finished reading this book. What starts out to be simply funny and quaint, turns gradually into something deeper and much darker. Family secrets long kept begin to bubble to the surface, as the narrator/protagonist Nadya begins to learn more and more of her family's pre-war and wartime history - unhappy and often brutal stories that her parents and her sister Vera (ten years older than Nadya) have kept from her. There is much here that will make you laugh, certainly. But there is even more here that will make you think about what the human animal is capable of in every respect. Most of all you will learn about what it means to be a survivor, as does Nadya, the post-war baby whose chosen name represented hope for a better future. This is a terrific book. I recommend it highly. ( )

Oh, puh-leeze. This book annoyed me; let me count the ways.

First, we have two middle-aged sisters, Vera and Nadia, who emigrated from Ukraine to UK as children. They don't get along. And they have much angst about this but seem powerless to change their relationship.

Second, we have their father, Nikolai, an elderly widower also living in the UK. He's lonely and a bit naive. And he's writing a history of tractors, and relates the development of the tractor to other events in history. Actually, Nikolai didn't annoy me. I felt sorry for him. Let's move on.

Third, there's Valentina, a 30-something Ukrainian blonde bombshell. She has a young son and very large breasts. Valentina convinces Nikolai to marry her in order to provide legal residency and an education for her son. As I mentioned, Nikolai is lonely and naive. And he likes her breasts. So he agrees.

Back to Vera and Nadia. Their father's marriage causes them even more angst. This, I could understand because Valentina turns out to be after Nikolai's money. And she spends it like there's no tomorrow. But Vera and Nadia? They whine, and talk, and fight with one another. Then they whine, and talk some more. Eventually they do something about the situation.

There were some interesting elements to this book, like gaining some understanding of Ukrainian political events that led to the family's relocation in the 1940s. And there was a great deal of humor in the book, especially the portrayal of Valentina who was really over the top. But almost from the beginning, I felt like I knew where the story would go. And the dynamics between the sisters bored me. When the "big reveal" came, which explained why the two were so different in a way that was supposed to be oh so emotional, it just left me flat. ( )

Charming! ( )

Opens with a fluffy pink grenade and closes with a sun salutation, this book is fun, funny, full of crazy characters, whose interactions are equally funny. Fast moving, covers, history, tractors, desperation, and family relations, enough hooks for large numbers of readers especially anyone who has ever been part of an immigrant family anywhere. ( )