“‘Now pay attention!’ said the finger. ‘Now pay attention, there's something you're not seeing here, the crucial starting point of a process that's hidden from you, but that's worthy of the highest attention.’”

Every work from Olga Tokarczuk I’ve picked up has left me a different person after I’ve read it. Not softer, and not nearly something to be considered finely honed, but irrevocably changed nonetheless. Gentle introspection runs carefully through this story, one of vengeance and pain, and of joy and cunning. Tokarczuk holds a mirror flashing the conclusion, like the sun in your eyes, and even if you knew all along, the journey to the end was so, so worth it. “Drive Your Plow” is not a befuddling mystery, it’s not sick and twisted and depraved, at least not for us readers. There is murder, of course, what good’s a story without it?

Shining bright in the heart of this cautionary tale is one magnetic narrator. Her quirks, behaviors and “Ailments”, and striking moral fortitude carved her story into my wall of favorite protagonists. Courage beats so loudly in her frail, old chest, and I’d follow her into the Czech Republic any day (after the mustard soup, obviously.)

4/5 My kingdom for a tiny village in the woods where my friends and I can whip shitties in our little Suzuki Samurais, hold our blessings in our hands, and change our perspectives of value every single day.