"A fantastic first novel which made me literally plunge back into my dearest memories of childhood reading" - Librairie La Soupe de l'Espace

"Here is a story conceived to leave its mark, to be felt in the pit of one's stomach" - Librairie L'Ouvre-Boîte

"This is a masterpiece concentrated into 110 pages...This is the sort of book that you don't put down, and leaves you with a knot in your stomach" - Clara Dupont-Monod, France Inter

"Suffocation and disgust are the dominant impressions, and yet... this book is a charm... Iván Repila's language is superb, it carries with it all the spells of fairytales with their ogres, wolves and evil stepmothers, but it also manages to evoke the much less fantastical universe of camps, prisons and caves where hostages waste away" - Éric Chevillard, Le Monde

"lyrical and realistic." - Zoé Valdés

"You will emerge from it changed, grown up... an essential novel... a masterpiece" - La soupe de l'espace

"It's been a long time since I have read such an impressive book. With its rich and wise prose, combination of mannerism and enlightenment, this broken tale of what makes us tedious and atrocious is also a harsh song of love" - Tendencias 21

"A vivid novel, full of metaphors and symbols about cooperation, the effort to survive, the world's brutality, and solidarity. All things that remind us of present and universal circumstances" - Revista de letras

"A brutal, Beckett-like tale. Its end is cathartic, hopeful and violent. It is utopian, and reminds us that language is the only thing that can save us: because language is everything" - La Vanguardia

"A seemingly traditional story which works on different levels of reading. A precise novel, solid and disquieting, veiling a deep wisdom" - El País