Read: May 6-11, 2026

I honestly cannot understand the positive reviews this book has received. It feels like they must have read a completely different book. Let's dive into my thoughts from worst (and most problematic) to best.

1) Not once but TWICE the author compares hunting and eating meat to the horrors of concentration camps and the holocaust. To equate hunting and eating meat with a tool for genocide that was used to murder millions of people is truly abhorent and insensitive. It was shocking that these types of remarks were being made and the fact that I have only seen one person comment on these remarks in the many reviews I have read is baffling.

"When you walk past a shop window where large red chunks of butchered bodies are hanging on display, do you stop to wonder what it really is? You never think twice about it, do you? Or when you order a kebab or a chop - what are you actually getting? There's nothing shocking about it. Crime has come to be regarded as a normal, everyday activity. Everyone commits it. That's just how the world would look if concentration camps became the norm. Nobody would see anything wrong with them" (page 105).

"Now it seemed clear to me why those hunting towers, which do after all bear a strong resemblance to watchtowers in concerntration camps, are called 'pulpits'" (page 242).

2) This bring my next issue with this book - the constant, heavy-handed, and non-nuanced discussion around hunting and eating meat.

Yes, the men in this book were very problematic and should be critized. Not only are they very sexist, but in terms of their treatment of animals they are poaching, running a fox fur farm, killing dogs, and taking photos celebrating all the animals they have killed. These are all things that are reprehensible and awful. However, the book refuses to acknowledge that ethical hunting does exist and eating meat can be an important part of health and survival. Someone can hunt and/or eat meat while still valuing animal lives and caring about them.

Some may hunt purely for sport (and that is definitely worthy of being criticized), but there are many who hunt who understand the responsibility of the act. They do so to ensure their (and their family's or community's) survival. They make sure that the animals do not suffer. They honor each life they take, feeling its weight, and not letting any part of the animal go to waste nor taking more than they need. Humans have been hunting for centuries and there are many great examples available to us of ethical hunting.

In the reality show, Alone, we see people grapple with the responsibility of taking animal lives for their survival (and we can see that survival off of plants alone is not possible). In Volume 6 of the Chef's Table on Netflix, we meet Dario Cecchini, an Italian butcher who shows us that caring about animals and eating meat are not mutually exclusive. Charlotte McConaghy's book, Once There Were Wolves, shows the devastating impact to the environemnt of uncheck populations due to lack of predators, and thus can help us understand the role hunting can play in population control. And in terms of eating meat, researching regenerative agriculture, you can see how livestock animals play an important role in our food system and actually help the environment through soil regeneration and carbon sequestration (this of course does not apply to feedlots which are unethical and harmful).

Coming back to the problems with the book, Tokarczuk tries to equate hunting and poaching: "To tell the truth, I have never understood the difference between 'poaching' and 'hunting.' Both words mean killing" (page 255). It is made clear in the book many times, that Tokarczuk believes hunting should be illegal. However, these two acts are very different. Poaching involves illegally snaring and killing animals. There is a clear lack of care about nature and animals. It is all about the poacher's gain. There are hunting seasons and laws for a reason. It is to ensure that we do not take too much from the land and the populations of animals remain in balance. Sustainability is baked into it. Look up "hunting vs poaching" and it will become clear that these 2 acts are very different.

My last point on this, is that animals will die regardless of whether you eat meat (something discussed in the death per calorie argument). Most plant-based foods you buy from the grocery store are grown via large-scale agriculture (and mainly via monocropping), which is not only bad for the environment but also results in many animals deaths - animals get poisoned from pesticides, crushed under farm equipment, and their habitats get destroyed. Yet, we do not seem to care about this as a society.

People can make their own personal choices on this topic, and that is not an issue. But when a book, especially with so much recognition, removes all nuiance from the subject and acts like anyone who hunts and eats meat is a terrible person, it's a problem. (Side note: I really have to wonder what the main character fed her dogs and how she felt about predatory animals...are they evil to in her eyes because they kill other animals?)

3) The second chapter is called "Testosterone Autism" which references a "theory" that the main character explains in it...it is just as problematic, insensitive, and abelist as it sounds.

4) I typically like an unlikeable main character but Janina was actually the worst and I could not stand her. In the end, there does not seem to be a point to any of it. How other people seemed to have loved her escapes me.

It feels that the only purpose her insufferability served was to show that everyone is hypocritical because in the end she ends up doing the very things that she killed all those people for. She kills them because they were killing animals, and more specifically because they killed her dogs (It does make me wonder if she would go on the way she does had her dogs not been killed...). She says "people think they can do what they want to Animals, as if they're just things" (page 203) and later says "Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who is worse?" (page 248). But this whole time she is murdering people, exacting her judgment, and she feels no remorse because according to her their murders are justified...how can she have the audacity...And in the end, the people, who are horrified by her actions, help her escape being caught by the police and continue to support her while she is in hiding. You have got to be kidding me.. And with that the book loses all its meaning and it is unclear what it is trying to say. Should we listen to anything she has said considering how unreliable of a character she is? The unreliable character does not seem to work in this story. And in the way that it was done, it ruined one of the things I actually liked that the author was doing. Janina throughout the book kept pointing out how the people, particularly men, dismiss her as crazy or a madwoman. And you see them writing her off, ignoring her, and just generally being sexist. This is such a relatable experience to many women. And then the author creates moments where you as the reader start to wonder if she crazy and it is very confronting to be put into those shoes. However, where it all falls apart is that she turns out to actually be batshit crazy and delusional. It would have been so much more impactful if she was right and sane and that there was some magical realism where the animals were taking their revenge. Because instead what happens is that all those sexist people were right...you were right to think that she is crazy...and doesn't that just reinforce the stereotypes?

And then there is her theory about how animals are taking revenge and killing the people. She writes multiple letters to the police informing them of this...and this does not make sense because if we assume the police listen, believe her, and take action, the only action they would take is to kill the animals. Like they would never banning hunting or protecting the animals that are murderering people as a response and she knows this because she talks about how people will say an animal is rabid as an excuse to kill it earlier in the book. So what is she trying to accomplish with her letters? What is she expecting to happen if she does get taken seriously?

5) The weird capitalization of words that maybe are supposed to reference William Blake's writing, serves no real purpose. In fact, the mentions of William Blake throughout the novel adds little to nothing to it...nor does all the rambling about astrology.

6) There were a few quotes and passages that I did enjoy and that posed interesting ideas, though these are not explored in a meaningful way, making them feel shallow.