The book plays on the superstition of the people who live there, portraying the whole area as backward and undeveloped. Admittedly, parts of the old country were just that uncivilized, but the place in whole was much more modern than what you'd feel from the book. The storytelling is smooth and masterful, for someone so young. The story not so much.
My problems start with technicalities - I listened to the audiobook, and the readers managed to mangle all the local names and expressions to the point that it got extremely annoying. I had to take a few days break on several occasions, before I could go on.
The fact that the author changed/made up the names of towns made it even worse. Why making up a name for something that's so obviously recognizable? Like 'Sarabor' for example, which in the book has combined attributes of Sarajevo and Mostar (both Bosnia-Hercegovinian towns were the scenes of monstrous atrocities during the war).
Another thing - having been through that war myself, the unapologetic stand of Ms Obreht irks me to the point of madness. Obreht portrays war she obviously never experienced as a conflict of equally guilty sides. Description of suffering in the war-torn "City," which can only be Belgrade, seems exaggerated. The mythical elements, which carry the main weight of the story, are anticlimactic, too long and too slow. It had a promise of a story a grandma would tell on a wintery night with a cup of warm milk. Instead, it turned into a dragging witch-tale.
And so, here is my problem: the story, and the area is too close to real to be able to take it as fiction or fantasy. And its twisted reality played on my senses of right and wrong. The characters are likable, especially the grandfather, but the surreal elements of deathless man and other superstitions, and the backdrop of the war made it impossible for me to like the book. Maybe, if I never lived there, I would like it. Maybe, if Tea Obreht lived there, she'd write a different story.
