From the very beginning, the story felt gloomy, almost depressing, for one main reason – alcohol. Everything revolves around drinking here. Although I didn’t like it, I have to admit that this element was important to the book; otherwise, it might not even have been readable.

I assumed that the author had problems with drinking. I looked it up and it was confirmed. Besides that, he had other psychological problems as well. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the writing is decent, even very decent. The only thing that occasionally stopped me was some strange similes. For example: “The sky was green like an apple.”

Every now and then, there is also a little additional explanation, as if the author didn’t completely trust the reader. But it’s nothing terrible. The story gradually develops and is enriched with sentimentality, philosophy, and romance, all of it mostly conveyed through the characters. The main theme is love, but there is also war, poverty, and more.

The greatest strength of this book is that it feels very alive. You can feel the emotions. And around halfway through, that was exactly what won me over. I considered it a very good book and expected it to build up even further.

But the build-up had already happened somewhere after the halfway point, and after that, everything was clear. The rest was just filler that slowed the story down incredibly, while the main themes started to repeat themselves.

What had initially won me over eventually started to annoy me. At first, the sentimentality felt natural and healthy. Then the author started pushing it everywhere, as if he was trying to make everything into something more than it actually was.

For example, those constantly recurring scenes with the car named Karl. Instead of simply having the car get from point A to point B because, in my opinion, that would have been appropriate at that particular moment, the author almost turns the car into a person who has to experience every single mile it travels.

Throughout the whole book, I was looking for the right word for this style of writing, for this genre. I even thought of a word like “soap opera.” But that would be an insult to the book. Then I thought it was “drama.” But that would be too strong, because it would, on the contrary, give the book more credit than it deserved.

Then I read some of the other reviews, and finally found it. It was melodrama. Something between a soap opera and a drama. That was a shame. Because I have never liked a book so much and then been so disappointed by it afterward, to the point where I started skipping passages again.

If the book had been shorter, if it had ended soon after everything had become clear, I would have rated it much higher. It still belongs among the better books, though, and I’ve read that it is far from the best of the author’s work, so I’ll give him another try in the future.