Trigger warnings: Displacement, military violence and war themes, refugee experiences

5/10, this was a snoozefest of a book and I'm surprised that Costa gave this one an award and it also gave one to another book called Sophie Someone which I didn't like and I didn't enjoy this one; maybe we have tastes that are too different from each other I don't really know. The story is about Charlie Law whose surname coincidentally is the same as my first name and he was called by his last name which was really strange to see but nonetheless I pushed on because that wasn't important. It wasn't that intriguing since it's just about when he met Pav who immigrated from one town to another to escape a war and barely spoke English however that made sense so then they bonded with one another, Charlie stops a mafia thing from happening and that was it. I disliked how the war was essentially in the background most of the time and I would have liked if I got to see Pav's POV of what happened when he was in the warzone and the choice to have thoughts written in all caps stood out and not in a good way. The other side characters were just forgettable and so was the side plot which was shoehorned in like almost every non romance book nowadays and guess what, the side plot was about Charlie developing an attraction with a girl named Jessica and that was it. If you like refugee stories give this one a try but another good one you should read is Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhhà Lại which has a similar story to this. ( )

It was just pretty boring to be honest.

Charlie is really annoying as a character, he's supposedly smart but he comes across as thick as shit. The dialogue style is very tedious, as no-one really seems to say anything so we have pages and pages of Charlie asking questions or repeating stuff to actually try to get some information.

The ending was kinda rushed and it just seemed to be oh they're good now, and book is over.

Nothing about the wider setting is ever really explained fully, which is a shame as that was what drew me in to begin with. It could have been really interesting to have Charlie learn more about the politics and become more involved rather than remaining pretty clueless. ( )

Charlie Law lives in Little Town. Little Town is in a conflict with Old Country. Old Country militia has taken over Little Town, harassing the people, bombing buildings. Life is about survival, managing meager supplies, and laying low. Charlie has a new neighbor Pav Duda, a refugee from Old Country. Despite all the suspicions Little Town holds about Old Country, Charlie takes Pav under his wing, trying to teach him the lingo and how to get along in Little Town. But gaining favors from the Big Man means Charlie ends up caught in a catch-22 situation that will profoundly impact Pav's family. The rapid-fire dialog highlights the tensions of living in Little Town with Charlie coming across as an amusing shlub just trying to make it. A different kind of book, not sure how or where I would place it, but entertaining and thought-provoking. ( )