How do you write a novel about the Russian invasion of Ukraine without your novel becoming a bleak, despairing portrait of war? Maria Reva's debut, Endling, does so, and in doing so becomes an utterly unique, engaging, masterpiece. It is a work with many surprises, stretches of meta-fiction, sequences which are funny, sequences of despair, and moments which leave you speechless. I certainly finished this novel with the sense I had read something very special.

An Endling is the last known member of a species, but Endling never feels like the last of anything, it feels more like the beginning of something which could be quite special. I'm very keen to see what Maria Reva does next.