This is a beautiful book. Warm, funny and full of lovable characters.

Our narrator, the 10 year old Luise invites us into a German village in the Westerwald. Through her eyes we are introduced to the people who matter to her: There is Selma her grandmother, larger than life and central to Luise and everybody else in the village. There is the superstitious-to-the-extreme Elsbeth - Selma’s sister in law, there is the optician - madly but nevertheless secretly in love with Selma and grumpy Marlies, who wants to be left alone but is taken care of lovingly by the villagers. And there is Martin, Luise’s best mate, with whom she spends every spare hour and who aspires to become a world champion heavy weight lifter. There are, of course, others who bring their own story to the party but I can only encourage you to find out for yourself – you will want to meet them all.

It is reputed that when Selma dreams of an Okapi, a death will occur within 24 hours – so when this creature appears in one of her dreams, the villagers hold their breath, anxiously waiting for the tragedy to unfold. Just when they recon to have got away with it, disaster strikes and impacts on everyone’s life, particularly on Luise’s.

At this point we leave the 10 year old Luise and meet her again when she is in her early twenties. In the next two parts of the book, we witness her overcoming the tragedy foretold by her gran’s Okapi dream, more than a decade ago. Naturally, the people in her village play a big part in it. Luise beautifully narrates the unfolding – by no means extraordinary – events in the village. When she meets the love of her life, she is challenged to step out of her limited orbit and is ready to explore the big wide world in the knowledge that there will always be a warm and loving place for her to return to.

This book is heart-warming, witty and quirky; its brilliance lies in its narration exposing the randomness and madness of life which we are encouraged to embrace. Splendid.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What You Can See From Here.

First thing I did when starting to read this was to Google an Okapi to see if it was a real animal. It is , who knew !
I loved this tale of Selma and the residents of a small village in Germany . It is a novel that wraps it's arms around you in a gentle hug. Heartwarming , poignant , emotional , life affirming , tragic ,
Mariana Leky has a beautiful way of writing that hasn't been lost in translation.
I can image this book will remain on the readers bookshelf to be taken down and re-read many times over.

I love books with a unique premise - this one definitely qualifies. However, it was not as strange as I had expected it to be. In different chapters, you get to see how different people in the town handle Selma's dream and in this way, the characters and their mutual relationships are portrayed in a very interesting way. I enjoyed this book - but it didn't captivate me as much as I had hoped.

Luisa’s grandmother Selma dreams of an okapi, so the whole community expects someone to die in the next twenty four hours: it is what has happened before. However, this time nobody dies, everybody breathes a sigh of relief and life continues as normal, until tragedy strikes anyway.
Centred on Selma’s crumbling house at the edge of the village, next to the forest, this is a beautifully observed character driven novel that spans twenty years or so. The cast of characters is relatively small, reflecting the close knit village community and their inter-relatedness, highlighting their dependence on Selma. Luisa is virtually raised by her grandmother: although she and her parents live in the apartment upstairs, her doctor father and florist mother are almost absent from the important parts of her life. Luisa’s friend Martin is often fed by Selma and protected from his strict, hard-drinking single parent father; Luisa is dispatched to check on Marlies, living alone in the village; Selma’s friend the optician harbours a deep love for her that he never admits; her sister in law Elsbeth, pedlar of local folklore, is a frequent visitor. All the characters are affected by the tragedy that follows the okapi dream, their journey through grief, especially that of Luisa who is seemingly unable to leave the village, forming the arc of the novel.
I was enthralled by this book from the initial mystery of the okapi dream, Luisa’s relationship with her grandmother, and her initial steps into a relationship with someone outside the protective community bubble she has been reluctant to leave. Superbly translated, this is a novel that stayed with me long after I had finished reading. I loved it.

Heartbreaking and heartwarming, it moved me to tears and it made me smile.
I think there's a strong element of magic realism and there''s a great depiction of small town life, grief and living.
Great characters and storytelling.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Inexplicably joyful. The best of books in translation - something you don’t expect, and something that is very hard to compare to anything else!

Perhaps similar vibes to movies like Little Miss Sunshine, but a completely different setting and story - just a mix of relatable, delightful and really mad.

Hard to explain, but certainly five stars, must be read to fully appreciate it - can’t recommend enough!

What a delightful book this is. It defies description in some ways, as it is so unusual. The story seems to be set outside of time and is told from the point of view of a young woman and the people, including her family, who are part of her life in a small village. All of them are quirky characters in themselves, but as a whole gives the book an almost enchanted feel.
It deals with issues such as grief and love but in a charming way and it is very humorous in parts. Some parts of the story are quite poetic, it is beautifully written. A heart warming magical story I would highly recommend.

On a beautiful spring day, a small village in Western Germany wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die. Luise, Selma’s ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Protesting that they are not superstitious, each of the villagers grapples with the buried secrets and deferred decisions that have suddenly become urgent in the face of death.

A book about death, life and love. It sounds far from original but Mariana Leky manages to weave these themes together lightheartedly, without losing any of the depth or resorting to clichés. I just wish this book was a person so I could wrap my arms around it, cuddle it and tell it how much I love it. This is so beautifully written, simple yet elegant, brimming with kindness and truth. I encountered so many sentences that I wanted to copy down, frame and hang on the wall.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to review this book. I only review hardcopies and made the epic of error of thinking NetGalley did both forms. Apologies for the inconvenience, and obviously if you're happy to send actually copies, I'd love to hear from you. Best regards,

The concept of anyone dreaming of an animal which leads to a death really tickled me, its such a different concept.
Some unique characters.
Found the repetitive phrasing quite irritating to the point it just didn't work for me sadly. Unsure if this is due to the translation or not,
Lots of good stuff, and great moments.