frogsteak
Into historical mlm litfic these days🤠
2856 points
September 2026
3.62 average · 30 reviews
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tldr: book great. pls read at earliest convenience.
not tldr: When it became clear that this book was happening in the now or in the adjacent-now, and that it would, in some ways, mention or get near current affairs, I got tense, not necessarily because I thought there were going to be bad takes or that there’d be stances that would be opposite to mine. The tension, and worry, was more about how things would be contextualized, would it veer into preaching, would it be patronizing, or even dismissive? Needless to say, my ability to trust is low, and I think that colored my experience—it took some time for the tale to seduce me, but that is entirely a me thing. Having read all of it, having sat with the story a while afterward, and sorting through thoughts and feelings, I can say that I love it. I love the build-up, the world-building, the descriptions, the atmosphere, the characters, the themes, the parallels, the evident ones and the subtle ones, and the very effective funnel approach. There were some gambles in there that made my jaw drop, and I was scared, but in the words of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey: there can be miracles, when you believe.
As Meat Loves Salt
Maria McCann
frogsteak commented...
I started a relisten the second I had some time for myself today🙈 It's so good! They really put the work in!
Mama, I fell in love with a KGB officer😭
It’s been a while since I got so attached and so moved by a book. The tale is well-written, first of all, in terms of prose, dialogue, world-building, character interactions, banter; it’s harrowing, funny, sweet, full of angst and aching yearning (my favorite), oppressive hopelessness, but at the same so full of hope. Valery, a middle-aged innocent-looking biochemist fresh out of a labor camp, with a colorful past, is sent to a town that doesn’t exist to research the effects of radiation on nature. Very quickly he notices that things are not what they seem, which puts him at odds with Shenkov, the head of the KGB office in this city, a beautiful man with the build to crush others but with a tender and gentle way of speaking. Valery knows that digging for the truth will probably lead him to getting shot in the dark and buried out in the woods, but he has to know. He has to do something. He’ll either convince Shenkov to listen or he’ll end up forcing Shenkov’s hand.
The audiobook, if you have time for it, is top-shelf. The emotions come across so strongly. I wept more times than I can count. I cannot wait for my physical copy of this book to arrive so I can annotate all my favorite parts, and give it a lil nuzzle. I love it🥺
