PositiveOn the SeawallIt’s rare to encounter a narrative like Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees, set in the middle of an ongoing — and intensifying — military assault ... I am struggling to acquire the distance from the news to read the book on its own terms, instead of looking in it for solace and a reason to hope that Ukraine will triumph over the aggressor. In many ways, this is a hopeful book, and it does provide some solace ... Grey Bees may inspire a variety of reactions. We could consider Sergeyich’s complex morality as a participant of war, and the palette of ethical decisions that he has to make in the course of this book.
Keith Gessen
MixedThe San Francisco ChronicleAndrei’s observations, though amusing, rely much too heavily on cliche ... His political observations are similarly surface level; he gives us Russia of the international headlines, whose economic success is presided over by an oligarchy ... I found the political narrative at the heart of this novel surprisingly naive given the author’s background, but in the last 30 pages it transforms into an engaging dilemma of an academic who becomes intimate with his subjects, to their detriment. Inordinately gracious, they send word that they don’t blame Andrei for what happened and let him keep his conscience unscathed: \'We knew what we were getting into.\'