Book Review: Black Greek Coffee

Book: Black Greek Coffee by Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

Want to see the darker side of Greek life?

Black Greek Coffee is a collection of twenty-three short stories, most of them set in rural 20th century Greece. Laced with harrowing truths, these stories deal with the darker side of life in Greece – the domestic violence, male domination, superstition and ignorance, the strong influence of religion and suffocating traditions.

Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou paints a vivid picture of everyday life in a Greek village. Culture, landscape and traditions are a backdrop to the divisions, gaps and barriers that lie between people and their relationships. There is a prejudice and unjustified animosity that hangs in the air around them, dividing and troubling them…

This series of short stories touches on themes of self-righteousness, religion, migration, chauvinism, illness, loss, death, war, superstition, honour and gender issues. Stories of the domestic, and occasionally reaching into the supernatural, they surprise, educate and challenge the reader’s intellect.

Written from the author’s own experiences, whether she has witnessed events or met people who have faced the misunderstandings that take place in the book, Black Greek Coffee is an exciting read for any fans of powerful fiction with a sting in its tail.



Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Review:

This book includes 23 short stories that cover a various range of subjects from romance and heartbreak to death and war. There is even an interesting slightly supernatural story that I found to be very intriguing. The stories in this book are about the everyday life and sometimes the harsh parts of life of people living in small Greek towns and villages.

You can feel the emotions surrounding each story. I found myself mad and sad and cheerful and delighted as I read because these stories were filled with so much. As the reader I was able to get a good sense of what these characters were going through and sometimes they were not happy times.

I thought the stories were very well-written and even though they are short stories you get some really amazing stories to read.