Press Reviews

• Ben Fountain, prize-winning author of BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK

  Maria Reva's dazzling debut novel Endling will take you on a ride you will never forget. Into this brilliant stew of a novel the fearless Reva stirs Ukraine's notorious "romance tour" industry, feminist activists, a kidnapping caper, the fine science of snail conservation, the eternal mysteries of family dynamics and Europe's first major land war since World War II. Only a supremely talented writer could handle material like this, and Reva--who seems incapable of writing a dud sentence--shows she's more than up to the task. Open this book, fasten your seatbelt, and brace for impact

• Percival Everett, author of Booker-shortlisted JAMES

  Maria Reva has made a fantastic novel. It's about so much and yet is laser focused. A scientist who funds her research with sex work, a wild and, at the same time, sensible and normal move. This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am and this is one

• Ann Patchett, bestselling author of TOM LAKE

  In Maria Reva's all-around brilliant novel Endling, the fate of some snails serves as a harbinger for the fate of Ukraine. The book is funny and smart, full of science, longing and adventure, all the while reminding us what the world stands to lose, and what it has already lost. This is essential reading

• Lara Prescott, bestselling author of THE SECRETS WE KEEP

  Heartbreaking, hilarious, profound, and vital, Endling is a brilliant, visceral journey that pulses with a powerful sense of urgency and relevance to our times

• Anelise Chen, author of CLAM DOWN

  Wild, exhilarating, heartbreaking...Over and over again, Endling delivers flashes of beauty and grace and dares us to see hope amidst wreckage and ruin

• Karan Mahajan, author of THE ASSOCIATION OF SMALL BOMBS

  Ironic, sharp, and wise, this is a big (meta)fictional achievement

• Library Journal (starred review)

  This work on feminist outrage, environmental destruction, and the inhumanity of war is not didactic; instead, it is a page-turning, genre-bending meta-novel as entertaining as it is gut-wrenching, whose experiments with literary form will keep readers on their toes

• Kirkus (starred review)

  Full of suspense and humor, while never letting go of what is really happening in the lives of Ukrainian people at home and abroad . . . A noteworthy literary achievement and also a good story, sure to be widely discussed and enjoyed.

• Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

  Astonishing . . . this inspired and urgent novel is bound to make a major splash

• Los Angeles Times

  Brilliant and heart-stopping

• Guardian, The 50 hottest books to read right now

  A fierce and funny road-trip novel which is - literally - interrupted by Russia's invasion

• Marcel Theroux, Guardian Book of the Day

  A dexterous and formally inventive debut novel ... Reva shares with us personal details about her connection with Ukraine, as well as her awareness of the war and the artistic challenge she faces: can anyone in good conscience make fiction out of these tragic events? The answer to that question is resoundingly affirmative.

• New York Times

  Startling and ambitious

• NPR

  A virtuosic debut novel ... Starting out as a straightforward story about a Ukrainian biologist, this witty, shape-shifting book turns into something trickier and more interesting ... Indeed, for all her humor and brio - she's never, ever preachy - Reva knows what she's joking about

• Financial Times

  A thrilling ride . . . Tender but never mawkish . . . Reva is breaking down the molecules of fiction to get at a 'broader, truer truth' through her combination of drama, self-examination and, notably, humour

• New Yorker

  Animated by dark humor and cool fury

• Washington Post

  Remarkable . . . Reva tests the boundaries of storytelling with freshness and humour

• NZ Herald

  Gripping . . . neither a work of magical realism nor auto-fiction or memoir, but an original piece encapsulating elements of all three'

• Sunday Times

  Inventive and powerful. The reminders that these characters are fiction emphasises that the horror and the violence are real

• Mail on Sunday

  Suspenseful and powered by a rare urgency

• Booker Prize

  Endling shouldn't be funny, but it is - very. Set in Ukraine just as Putin invades, it features three young women, on two different missions, in one vehicle. Structurally wild and playful, Endling is also heart-rending and angry. It examines colonialism, old and neo, the role of women, identity, power and powerlessness, and the very nature of fiction-writing. Maria Reva also tells a riveting, unique story; the shock is that this is her first novel. It's a book about the world now, and about three unforgettable women, Yeva, Nastia and Solomiya, travelling together in a mobile lab. The endling, by the way, is a snail

• Observer

  A stunning debut . . . [its] formal adventurousness demonstrates the depth that the novel can bring to issues we struggle to reckon with

• Sara Lawrence

  Daily Mail

  I was gripped by Yeva's journey across her beautiful, war-ravaged country with her fragile yet hardy snails, a symbol of hope and endurance even when death seems inevitable. Brilliant

• John Self

  The Times

  Playful . . . never boring