Customer Reviews: Read 178 more reviews...
 Highly recommended June 24, 2008
I bought this on a whim, and boy, how lucky was I? I really loved the book, and am reading it now, month after I bought it, for the second time, it is just as enjoyable!
Marina Lewycka's second book 'Two Caravans' is just as good btw.
Buy it, you will not regret it. :)
'You dried shrivelled relic of ancient goat turd!' May 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
An absolutely hilarious book. It arouses anger, and surprisingly a great deal of humour, from the injustice of a senile 84 year old man being manipulated by a scheming, narcissistic Ukrainian woman/'criminal slut', Valentina. She wants to marry him so she can live and work in the UK whilst milking him for every penny he has. The frustration of the narrator, the elderly man's daughter, Nadia at the unfolding events makes for incredibly funny and gripping read. The book is also centers on the reconciliation of Nadia and her sister as they join forces, after 2 years of cold silence, to fight a common enemy: the evil Valentina.
Comedy is usually at its best when it has a grounding in something dark in reality. As such, it's usually very difficult to do. But this novel pulls it off magnificently; the abuse of the elderly, asylum seekers and background history steeped in blood and despair. A rare treat.
 Mildly amusing but not earth shattering May 21, 2008
This book was just ok in my opinion. I did find it mildly amusing in parts and I did want to know what would happen to the family in the end but I wasn't hooked. Perhaps there weren't any characters i could really relate to or care about.
Missed Opportunity May 14, 2008
This book could have been one of the greatest novels of our time. A family story involving sibling rivalry, issues about the elderly and immigration, the roles of communism and capitalism, wartime atrocities and even symbolism using tractors. It is well written and a page turner, so why is it an also ran?
Firstly, the characters act in unbelievable ways and any tension and conflict that builds up just fizzles out. There are unnecessary digressions that don't advance the plot and the plot itself is weak. And finally there is no great theme that glues the whole work together.
Which is a shame because I think that Marina Lewycka could have written that great novel. Perhaps the next one?
 Unputdownable! April 2, 2008
I must admit it took me a long time before I got round to reading this book. I wondered what all the fuss was about! I think it was the fact that the title made me wonder whether the book was about tractors and nothing else! However, when I started to read, I could not stop until I had reached the end. The narrative could be confusing, though, when there were the flashbacks in time. Although the subject matter was something I don't know much about, I loved the humour in the story, especially Pappa and the gold-digger Valentina, also the relationship they had with the two completely different daughters. I can wholeheartedly recommend "Tractors" to anyone else and cannot wait to read "Two Caravans".
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