the hottest dishes of the tartar cuisine, by alina bronsky
family, dark humour | teen audiences | 5 stars

*smol spoilers ahead*
tw: forced abortion

this book is a little bit difficult to explain why, exactly, i specifically like it. i grew up with someone similar to the narrator of this book, rosa achmetowna, but in reality someone much worse than rosa (in some ways, not in others...), so i feel like it doesn’t make sense that i would like a book featuring this nasty narrator but i did.

the book is about three generations of women who somehow manage to survive one another, but while it has its funny, sometimes hilarious moments, it’s also troubling, the lengths rosa goes to, to her own sense of grandeur and her terrifying narcissism. yes, it’s masked in humour, and you’ll probably laugh at a lot of this book, and you should, because it is a funny book, but ultimately, it’s also kinda not.

rosa achmetowna is a woman living in soviet russia, in a very cramped apartment with her husband, kalganow (who, according to rosa is good for nothing), daughter sulfia (who, according to rosa is stupid and ugly) and a nosy roomate klavdia (who, according to rosa is also good for pretty much nothing), and when she discovers that her teenage daughter is pregnant, she tries all sorts of potentially dangerous home remedies to stop the pregnancy. but, she’s unsuccessful (a rare occurrence) and nine months later, sulfia gives birth to aminat, and rosa falls in love with her (accidentally, aminat looks a lot like rosa).

the book follows aminat growing up and all the ways in which rosa tries to “help”. and by “help” you should read: do outrageous things, be resourceful, and controlling, and narcissistic and toxic, but alina bronsky writes her in a way that she’s unapologetically so, and you can’t look away. bronsky doesn’t try to make you like rosa, or any of the characters in the book, no, and the things she does, and how she acts make it impossible to like her, but she’s absolutely captivating in all her nastiness.
one thing that struck me really hard while reading and re-reading this book is that rosa wants her daughter and granddaughter to be happy. she wants a better life for them. but she’s the type of person who can’t possibly imagine that what she thinks is best, isn’t what everyone thinks or wants. and i’m familiar with that type of person, who layers “helping” and “wanting only the best for you” in so much toxicity and narcissism that you pretty much want to strangle them all the time. it’s tough but i think this book is valuable in seeing how sulfia and aminat (and everyone else) suffers along with rosa.

there’s dark humour, but there’s also tragedy in this story, and i felt that personally. it’s also interesting to read about soviet russia and later on, west germany and what happens there and how they even end up there. it’s set in the days when soviet russia slowly tears itself apart at the seams, and the conditions for rosa and her family get more and more desperate and over the course of the story you also learn that rosa herself has led a hard life. and again, yeah, i can relate to that because i’m familiar with the story - i’ve led a hard life and i don’t want that for my children so i’ll sacrifice everything and that gives me the right to control you, to be toxic, to do anything i want. which ...is disturbing, terrible and tragic and it deeply, deeply hurts those around that sort of person.

it’s dysfunctional family at its best (worst).