This is a difficult read at times, a book about poor woman who donates their eggs to a rich couple. It also covers a lot of broader topics, like the fall of the Soviet Union and politics.

Thank you to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen.

The book started off slowly, but after reading a quarter of it, was drawn into the story. The story centers around Olenka and her life and some of the questionable choices she has made. The book is based between Finland and Ukraine and at the time that I started reading, I too was visiting Helsinki, which brought the book even more to life for me. I was also moved by the fact that at the time of reading the book the war in the Ukraine was still ongoing, and that the story reflects back to post-Soviet independence. The hard work that was undertaken by the Ukrainian people to rebuild their country after the fall of the Soviet Union is described bleakly. The contrast between the freedoms experienced in Finland is not lost on the reader.

The threat to Olenka's lifestyle is in the form of an old friend who also knows her secrets. How far will Olenka go to ensure that the secrets continue to stay buried and not impact the lives of others?

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I had a few download issues with the book and by the time it was sorted, the file had unfortunately been achieved. Happy to re-review if it becomes available again.

The narrator, like many women from the Ukraine, is scraping a living in Finland, working for more affluent women. When she is watching a family in the dog park one day, she is confronted by a woman from her past, and realises that her anonymous, if drudging, life, is no longer safe. As she takes steps to find out what this young woman knows, the past and her misdeeds unfold.
This is a difficult read, uncompromising in laying bare the harms of the global fertility trade and the brutalising effects of poverty and inequality of access. Olenka tells her story in a fragmented way, skirting some of the worst incidents in her past, and it resulted in a queasy sense of dis-ease for this reader. The ending, ambiguous as it is, is devastating.
I couldn't review this for weeks, because of its effect on me. Incredibly powerful and unsettling.

A fascinating narrative set in the intersections of Western and Eastern Europe, exploring feminine identity and the hustle to find yourself. Very unique and great for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh.

Well all through this book I had been thinking 4 stars but the ending left me with so many questions still unanswered that I’m having to give it a 3 and hoping that there may be a sequel to give me some closure. Olenkas life changes dramatically when a stranger who she instantly recognises sits next to her on a bench. I really enjoyed how the book unfolded as it hops backwards and forwards in timelines and different destinations giving us bit by bit more information as to what is going on, who she is running from and why.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A dark and honest story filled with despair, Dog Park is a rather dystopian and rather depressing story but incredibly written. Rather thriller like but so much darker! I really enjoyed this and it kept me turning the pages into the early hours of the morning

This a very tense read. It gripped me right from the beginning. I've seen people call it a literary mystery and I agree. Well written and an interesting setting. Really reccomend.

When I got to the end of this dark and disturbing novel I immediately went back to the beginning and started over, as I felt really unsure about much of what had happened, and the ending left me particularly bemused. In fact I remain so. It was well worth a second reading, as it’s a complex and disjointed tale that bears close examination. Not an easy read, on many levels. It starts in Helsinki in 2016 when the protagonist Olenka is sitting on a park bench and turns to find that the woman whose life she so deeply impacted back in their native Ukraine is sitting next to her. It soon becomes apparent that there is unfinished business between them, and gradually a story of betrayal and ruthlessness emerges. We receive this background information piecemeal, but it’s all handled with a sure touch, which only my second reading made clear. This is a bleak and hard-hitting novel about the global fertility market, and what many women in Ukraine are forced to do to survive. A basic knowledge of the political situation in Ukraine and of the conflict there is useful, for sure, but at its heart this is a very human story. Corruption, exploitation, poverty, lack of opportunities, lawlessness and criminality – there’s plenty of all of these. And no one remains untainted, including Olenka herself, who remains morally ambiguous and unlikeable, but sympathetic in her longing for a better life. The narrative is fractured and intricate and requires patience and concentration but it repays the effort. A story of despair and desperation, and an authentic and unflinching exploration of a very murky world indeed.

A thoroughly good read. An original idea, a well written book which grips you from start to finish. I loved that it was set in Finland and the Ukraine and gave insights into the Soviet Bloc. The topic of harvesting female eggs was an interesting hook. I found the main character engaging. The story gradually came together as details of the past were released.The tension kept me enthralled and the tantalising hope of fairy tale ending was dangled throughout.

Translated from the Finnish, and broadly defined as a literary thriller, Oksanen takes us through the decades of post soviet collapse with an intriguing reproductive health lens.

Essentially a women in the run, leaving Ukraine after a murder, hiding out in Finland but reflecting on the choices she’s made that have left her with no choices at all.

Entrenched within this story is a web of social political commentary, opium farms and illegal mining territories, corruption and dissidents. There is assumption from Oksanen that readers will be au fait with Eastern European history, which made it a slightly more complex read but I applaud her avoidance of over explanation for the sake of universal appeal.

I read this alongside a non fiction memoir (free by Lea Ypi) and the two spoke to each other on the idea of freedom and democracy in the particular time space of Eastern Europe at the turn of the century .

Although the fugitive story line is the main propellant of plot, the history of our protagonist is steeped in the underground fertility world. Buying babies, selling wombs and the morally murky areas that new capitalism brought to a country with many young women desperate for a step ahead, all contribute to an anxiety inducing read.

I requested 'Dog Park' as I have fond memories of reading Purge (Puhdistus) back in high school and wanted to revisit Oksanen's writing.

'Dog Park' has an interesting premise and narrative structure, told from the perspective of a woman, Olenka, who we meet in Helsinki in 2016. She's at the dog park, watching a family and their young children play when a stranger sits down next to her. Except, it turns out it's not a stranger at all. It's a woman from her past, prompting Olenka's thoughts and the narrative to start flitting back and forth between present day Helsinki and Ukraine a decade earlier. Gradually, the connection between the two women and the family in the dog park begin to become clearer.

Oksanen's writing is confident in handling the time jumps and creating ambiguity, as well as building a strong sense of mystery and intrigue. She crafts a dark atmosphere both in theme and setting, and there's a constant sense of unease that follows you throughout the set-up. Olenka, narrating her story to an unknown 'you', feels that her hands are tied by the other woman's presence and as a reader, this translates into a dreamlike (or nightmarish) suggestion of powerlessness which only increases as it becomes clear that the both women are involved in an illegal fertility/surrogacy scheme.

There are plenty of interesting themes in this novel - explorations of class, power, and the exploitation of female bodies - but for some reason I struggled to get into. Despite this, I would recommend this book if you are looking for dark social realism and skillful storytelling. I always felt like I was in safe hands and the translation felt very natural. It was simply a matter of the wrong book at the wrong time for me.

A very ambitious novel about egg donation by poor Ukrainian women to rich Western couples. To call it a literary thriller would be an insult to the literary qualities, but it is definitely built up so as to keep the reader guessing, slowly but certainly releasing tiny pieces of information.

Olenka is a young Ukrainian woman trying to escape from poverty. We know she has made a career but something must have gone terribly wrong as we meet her poor and alone on a bench in a dog park in Helsinki. What happened? Who is the family she is spying on? And who is the woman that just sat down next to her?

The plot is central, but lots of themes are covered which makes it very interesting: the fall of the Soviet Union, corruption, poverty, politics, the Orange Revolution. But also motherhood, childlessness and infertility. I am not sure if the author is of Ukrainian descent; if not the research is impressive.

Overall a very good read. But...I am quite disappointed by the ending...perhaps once more people have read it we can have a discussion about it...

Many thanks to Netgalley and Atlantic for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set in contemporary Ukraine, Dog Park takes the reader through the underbelly of the country particularly in relation to women and the exploitative nature of fertility tourism.

I certainly found the plot intriguing in the first half however it started to become confusing to me in the second half. Although the backdrop and plot were interesting I found the character development less so.

A dark dystopian on the shadows of the fertility market and the condition of women in Soviet and post-Soviet countries, evidencing the cynicism, the exploitaiton, the lack of opportunities and the need to do anything to survive. Also a pacy thriller and noir highlighting the lawlessness and gangsterism that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, anda wider commentary on the dark side of politics, deeply enmeshed with criminality.

Excellent premises, very interesting plot, interesting complex characters who can be good and villainous at the same time and excellent character exploration adn really engaging overall, brilliant in the way that the female theme mixes with noir elements. There are dystopian elements, too, but they are not too far from reality, and this makes it all the more compelling. So glad i read it and will try to read more from this author.
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4.5 rounded up

My thanks to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

"Passports are like cars for men or shoes for women. You can never have too many. Especially ones that weren't purchased through a regular dealer".

What an incredible tale. Sofi covered the non-fictional exploitation of women in Ukraine, in low paid jobs based around prostitution, surrogacy, egg donation and more through an eye-opening fiction. Through measures far beyond their control as a result of geographical and political history, far too many women have been trapped into a future that isn't theirs. There were far too many quotes I wanted to take away from this, but instead I'll focus on the key ideas the both left me pondering.

Firstly, how powerful the butterfly effect is. It's not until the end that the reader truly understands the first motion that set the entire novel into motion. An act that seemed so flawless, so untraceable, that it was probably forgotten in seconds. The novel lays this groundwork but doesn't discuss it in depth, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions, a powerful move.

Secondly, ethics. Just how ethical are we truly? The book highlights the sex trade, families who believe there is an amount of money that can cover any act from a fellow human being and the unfair balance between nations that empowers some citizens whilst forcing others into uncertainty.

Finally, is right and wrong truly black and white? If we are forced into actions that are unethical, are we to blame or is the institution that put us there? Is seeking a better life a crime when, with the shoe on the other foot, others would do the same?

I have no answers.

I have to admit, the writing lost me half way through. For some unknown reason, the hooking tale shifted into almost letter writing to a character unknown to the reader and in all honestly, irrelevant once revealed. A true shame but nonetheless, the story itself is worth the read and the analogies and description is top notch.

Thank you to NetGalley for the incredible ARC.

This book was free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of those books that started with a lot of promise but I felt it fizzled out in the second half. I liked the plot, the subject of the fertility market in ex-soviet Ukraine can hardly be accused of one that’s overdone. I liked the dual timeline and this usually works quite well in terms of giving a feel for where a story is headed.
But, the book is written in first person narrative, to someone who we don’t learn the identity of until much further through the story. This is where I found it didn’t work too well. Towards the end, where the various threads should be coming together it seemed to get clumsy and confused between the timeline and the narrative and I had to keep rereading sections to be clear about who was doing what.
It also felt as the book got towards the end, that numerous characters who’s back stories had been quite detailed earlier on, were actually not that important after all. I found the ending to be rather disappointing really given how well it started so I can’t really give this more that a 2-3 start rating overall.

I really enjoyed the Ukranian history in this book, particularly the way it affected the "ordinary" citizens . It did feel there were a lot of stereotypes that we tend to see in the West though: selling organs, eggs and drugs and the rich gang bosses.
I felt the first half whipped along and I gradually worked out the sudden time changes, but the plot seemed to slow in the second half with little character growth and a disappointing ending
Thank you to netgalley and Atlantic for an advance copy of this book

I am sorry to have to say this, but this novel has been so boring to the point I've skimmed entire paragraphs just to finish it.

The story was very slow going with the actual twist being delivered in the last 20% of book and with quite a few things left to the imagination. Maybe if one is interested in the background story they won't care that much about the snowball that got the story going, but for me the narrative was cliche, after cliche, after cliche. It seems that there's nothing else to talk about, when it comes to the East, than traffic with organs, women, eggs, poverty, corruption and crime lords(inevitably they were Jews too *eye roll* - at least they were not Gypsies lol)

I guess for the western reader this it will be an interesting novel, documenting quite well life in Ukraine, the faith of many under communism and after the fall of the Soviet block. Many will also feel strongly about the plight of women in a society that doesn't offer many opportunities. The writing is solid too, which will make for a nice reading. But for me, coming from the East I am rather tired of always hearing about the same old, same old! There's more to our part of the world than what this novel covers.