Excellent Book

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is refreshing to read foreigner/expatriate's perspective of real life in Russia with its beauty and ugliness well balance. The author is not patronising which is refreshing. Excellent Debut. The only complaint is narrators russian pronounciations. Inaccurate and not really good. However, his switch between british and american was pretty good.

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4 people found this helpful

Evocative of russia but unsatisfying story

Lovely portrait of russsia and an excellent narrator.

However the lawyer in it is eye-rollingly dumb. There's not a lawyer alive who would fall for this. and no matter how gorgeously told when the characters actions make no sense it's hard to stay within the space of the story.

Many people in the reviews have obviously enjoyed it - but for the final third, I found myself thinking over and over 'but no lawyer would do that'.

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Atmospheric

I enjoyed this book. The writing/narration is very atmospheric and made me imagine I was really there, in modern day Russia, and it rekindled my curiosity about the place. However, it was too easy to see where the story was going, both on the main character's personal and professional level, so I didn't feel a great deal of suspense or tension. Still, it is a book that will stay with me and one that I reckon would look fantastic on the silver screen one day, given the right actors and screenplay adaptation.

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Too slow literary thriller

Interesting to read about a dark side of Moscow the main protagonist becomes progressively embroiled within.

Too slow for my tastes and I didn’t care sufficiently about any of the characters not to ditch this less than three hours from the end.,

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Good book

A wonderful book, beautifully read. Highly recommended and enough twists and turns to keep you captivated from start to very satisfying finish.

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1 person found this helpful

Disappointing and a bit dreary

The actual reading was fine - the story was just a bit dreary and you could see what was going to happen almost from the start. The reading was a bit downbeat which added to the feeling of gloom. Atmosphere was good but it never really went anywhere interesting. So, overall, not terrible, but not worth getting very excited about.

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4 people found this helpful

Almost depressing

the story was ok but overall book + narrator I found it sad and depressing

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Disappointing book well read

I find it hard to understand why this book made it to the Booker shortlist. The pace is very slow, the characters are dislikable and the conclusion is obvious from about half way through. The reader did his best to inject some life into the story but it was one of the few audiobooks I've listened to that I was glad to finish.

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1 person found this helpful

Substantial and subtle

The more negative reviewers may have missed the point with 'Snowdrops'; it's the small details and brutal honesty about personal failings that make the first-person narrative work so well, and it's allied to excellent narration as well. Miller was good writing for the Economist and even better here.

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1 person found this helpful

Great story

I love this book, read it before, the performance was great, not too over the top, just perfect.

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