Yulia Yakovleva is the author of the popular novel series "Leningrad Fairy Tales," in which the story of Stalin’s terror and the pre-war years is told with frighteningly naive and disarming innocence—because it is told by children and for children.
Karina Dobrotvorskaya blew up the internet and reader communities with the release of the novel "Has Anyone Seen My Girl?" Based on it, a film was made starring Anna Chipovskaya, Viktoria Isakova, and Aleksandr Gorchilin, which became a hit.
In the new novel written by Yulia and Karina together, everything that makes the work vivid and memorable is present:
* an interesting, non-standard plot about a distant future
* a romantic intrigue
* a detective investigation
* an original author’s world described in detail
* a European tone that makes the novel feel like a “translated novel” about our near future, yet it reads like a story about the present.
In the new world, awareness and an ecological revolution have won. Any emotions except positive and conflict-free ones are banned. For breaking the rules—fines. If you eat more than the norm and the inspector finds an excess on you—fines again. You can’t hurt anyone, not even a ant.
How long can a person live in such horror? Yakovleva and Dobrotvorskaya write both ironically and seriously—about new ethics, the Gretta Thunberg cult, about people who played too much with moral norms—and about the fact that in the end human nature will still win.
The novel combines the best of the authors’ talents: an engaging plot by Yulia Yakovleva and subtle, deep psychological insight by Dobrotvorskaya. The novel is the leader in its niche.