The book is packed with insights, on family as much as on politics. Ypi is a beautiful writer and a serious political thinker, and in just a couple hundred readable pages, she takes turns between being bitingly, if darkly, funny and truly profound.

Ypi’s memoir is instead brilliantly observed, politically nuanced and – best of all – funny.

... a brilliant hybrid of memoir and political theory.

... astonishing and deeply resonant.

Ms. Ypi’s story is confounding and also beautiful.

... brilliant and moving.

This prize-winning memoir recounts with wit, charm, and wisdom the author’s life before and after the fall of communism in Albania.

... beguiling.

... offers gem after gem of the bizarre reality that Hoxhaism produced.

Ypi’s memoir is gloriously readable. It is a subtle inquiry into the meaning of freedom, personal and philosophical, and a wonderfully funny and poignant portrait of a small nation in a state of collapse.

Lea Ypi, a politics professor at the London School of Economics, wanted to write a thoughtful book about concepts of freedom. She succeeded, quite brilliantly, although by means other than she had intended at first.

The point of view of a child, for whom weirdness is normal and small things loom large, is a good one for examining how the death throes of a failing despotism seep into the tiniest corners of its subjects’ lives..

... a poignant, charming, thought-provoking, funny and ultimately sad exploration of Albania’s journey from socialism to liberalism through a child’s eyes.

With gentle humor and insight, Ypi draws rich portraits of the three caring adults she grew up with.

... still bears traces of its original conception: under the limpid surface the ‘themes’ are checked off one by one: feminism, religion, migration etc. Yet the result is a plunge into the vanished world of Albanian communism and the new system that was meant to replace it. The fun of the book (for a Western reader at least) is that Ypi has made communism her control, with the market-based revolution of the 1990s the estranging experience that forces her to reckon with what it means to ‘come of age at the end of history’.

... trenchant.

... vivid.

Ypi’s presentation of the post-Communist world, is decidedly objectivist. The reality that unfolds is of Albanian society: elections, waves of immigration, Ponzi schemes, political turmoil. The personal ingredient is there, to be sure, but the author’s story goes far beyond what she herself experienced.

... beautiful.

The author’s narrative voice is stunning, expertly balancing humor, pathos, and deep affection for the characters and places that defined her past. She is adept at immersing readers in her childhood experiences of unquestioned loyalty to 'The Party' while also maintaining a tongue-in-cheek, critical distance from what she now recognizes as a tyrannical regime. However, while the scenes and characterizations are captivating, the book lacks a clear narrative arc, making the chapters feel more like a loose collection of memories than a cohesive story.