What readers think of Endling, plus links to write your own review.

Endling is an absurdist tragi-comedy of a novel that pokes and prods at the lives of two groups of people - expat Ukrainians living in Canada (including the author, who inserts herself into her story in several instances of meta fiction) and young women in Ukraine immediately prior to the further incursion by the Russians in February 2022. Reva uses the foreign marriage bride industry as a metaphor for how much the world does not understand about Ukraine and its people, as well as for a plot device. The other primary metaphor at play is that of the snail population, whose species are dying out. A poorly conceived plan by one of the "brides" to kidnap prospective "grooms" that ensnares a sad malacologist who is trying to save Ukraine's snail population goes awry when the Russians invade. This is an excellent novel that illuminates the struggle of those watching a war unfold from afar and those who find their everyday lives completely upended by a war that they would never choose. Highly recommend.

I loved this darkly comic tale of a Ukranian female scientist, intent on rescuing snails from the verge of extinction, two other women who have entered the "romance tour" industry for very unusual reasons, and a Ukranian-Canadian bachelor looking for love, all of whom become entangled in a wild kidnapping scheme, in the middle of which, the Russian invasion begins. Full of surprises! And interruptions from the author herself, a Ukranian-Canadian herself, as she questions why she is writing the novel, from a distance, in war time. Unlike anything else I've read, and easily one of my top three books of the year!