The Hungry and the Fat

With the dramatic events currently shaping the world with Covid-19, this book provides a reminder of the previous crisis which in many ways wasn't resolved before the current events brought the news focus elsewhere. The focus of this book is on the migrant crisis in Europe, and it paints a darkly satirical take on the whole affair.

The focus here is on how the western worlds shallow focus on celebrity influences can clash with the real stories of suffering that most of these migrants bear. The central premise of a vapid reality show mixing fashion with refugees is exactly the sort of insensitive nonsense you could imagine being dreamed up in the more heartless parts of the press, but this story rapidly develops a heart as it skewers the hypocrisy of Europe with regards to the rights of refugees and who should bear the costs of integrating them into europe.

The first two thirds of the book gently simmers with this satire - the book is extremely quotable with some darkly insightful takes on human nature. I loved this part of the book and it would have been a solid 5 stars if it had kept up that promise. Unfortunately the last 3rd tails of sharply - the arrival of the immigrants into Europe was always going to be a difficult part to spin with the gentle humour of the start. The story ends up diving down some really dark alleys at the end, and this change in tone was extremely jarring.

I loved the first 2/3rds, the last 1/3rd was fine if different and the ending was just too jarring. This is 3.5 star for me, boosted to 4 because of how much I enjoyed that first part.