Our Country Friends: 2 Stars

I've seen a wide range of reviews for this novel. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in my 2-star rating. There are some books I click with immediately. Other books may not be my particular style but I can look past that and appreciate great work regardless. The novel "Our Country Friends" by Gary Shteyngart unfortunately, had neither effect on me.

Below I'll give a brief summary of the book and my personal thoughts and reasoning for my 2-star rating.

Summary

This novel takes place during the height of Covid. 8 friends isolate themselves at the country home outside of New York City. The group consists of a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their Korean-born child; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a world traveler; an essayist; and a movie star.

As you can imagine, 6 months in isoloation can test even the deepest of friendships. Throughout the novel, we experience a budding romance, an affair, betrayal, and harbored resentments that are brought to the forefront.

Friendships are tested, hearts are broken, memories are shared, and fear is prominent.

My Thoughts

In all honesty, I wish I could give a glowing review of this book. I never start a book assuming I won't like it. Judging on the summary alone it sounded like it would be right up my alley. However, no such luck.

Part of my dislike for the book is of no fault of the author, it takes place at the height of Covid, a time a personally do not wish to revisit. Throughout the entirety of the book, I felt like I was in a haze. I was bored, anxious, and unfocused. Perhaps that was the author's intended effect to make the reader feel like they were back in 2020 reliving it all over again. This novel felt too present, too close to home. Which again, is no fault of the author.

While the novel is fiction, it almost felt like a collection of autobiographies. Someone reliving their day-to-day during Covid when there was nothing to do and everyone was on edge.

I also didn't feel particularly drawn to any of the characters. I had a hard time relating to them. They seemed removed and unrelatable. Perhaps that was my frustration with the book. The storyline was relatable, most people basically lived a similar life, (for me without the fancy country home) but the characters felt fake, their emotions and actions confusing.

There were several instances in the book where a dramatic event took place and the characters, in my opinion, reacted with "eh." For example, the wife of the host has an affair with the actor, everyone including her husband knows and for some reason, it's glossed over. There's no big confrontation or strong words. We have an actor, psychiatrist, novelist, and writers, how was there not more communication about this??

I felt like the story moved slow, the scenes which could have been exciting weren't and at the end when a character is fading in and out of memories I found myself lost and by that point not really caring to get back on track. I rarely leave a book unfinished but I was tempted with this one.

I would still recommend giving this book a read because as I've seen in the other reviews, everyone is different with different opinions and insights. Perhaps this book will hit differently for you than it did me. I'm always open to hearing other opinions especially when it's a book I did not particularly enjoy.

Thank you for taking the time to read my review of "Our Country Friends" by Gary Shteyngart. Stay tuned for more book reviews in the coming days.

Leah Lawrence