I enjoyed this one, but it's left me feeling a little unsettled. As the two characters seem to be caught in an in-between phase of life, it seemed like a perfect title to read right now, but I'm still unsure how exactly I felt about it after reading it.

SCORPIONFISH is a quiet, meditative look at grief, illness, heartbreak, and being a multinational. I was pleasantly surprised by Natalie Bakopoulos' beautiful prose and haunting story of a young academic who moves into her parent's apartment in Greece after their untimely deaths. Mira, a Greek-American from Chicago, has only experienced Athens during summers so as she navigates a full-time life in her second home, and grieves the loss of her parents and also a boyfriend who dumps her unexpectedly after their funeral, we follow her journey in re-discovering her place of origin.

I greatly related to the voyage of coming to terms with being from two countries, and finding a balance between your American self and your expatriate self. Mira spends most of the book going on an inward journey of self-discovery, while also falling for a handsome sea captain (!) who lives next door. In a few of my favorite chapters, we also follow his story as he goes through a divorce and struggles to raise his twin daughters. This is an unexpected book, not a page-turner but a solid story about ordinary and extraordinary loss. It is also about art, academia. found families, and the recent Greek economic crisis. A wonderful debut from an author I'm so glad I know about now.

Thank you NetGalley and Tin House Books for providing me with an ARC of <i>Scorpionfish</i> in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist

I read this book a couple of months ago when the restlessness and reality of the lockdown really kicked in.

I live very close to the Greek neighbourhood in my hometown and with everything having been shut down the prospect of not being able to travel or even take a stroll down my beloved neighbourhood made me sad.

When I was scrolling through NetGalley I was hoping to find something that slightly reflect that sense of limbo I was feeling. At the same time, I needed a mental escape. I needed something that would take me far away from my couch.

I also needed a story that had a protagonist I could relate to.

I don’t know how or why I ended up requesting <i>Scorpionfish</i>, but I read halfway through the synopsis and decided I must read this story.

The Details

I liked the protagonist. On paper she looks like she’s got everything working out for her. A successful university professor and from the looks of it enough financial means to keep a place of residence in America, while taking an extended leave of absence in Greece to deal with some family business.

She is a bit of a mess, though. She is struggling with some past trauma and this gives her some depth.

I also liked the concept of two people getting to know each other by talking without seeing each other. Those nightly conversations each on their respective balconies gave them the freedom to open up without the distraction of having to look at each other.

There was something beautiful about it.

I liked the writing. The author showed great skill and talent bringing all those characters to life. The descriptions of the places and setting were vivid and enchanting.

Yet, at times everything felt just a little too abstract. I wanted more. More of the captivating language the narrator used to draw the reader into the world of this story.

The ending left me puzzled and unsatisfied.

The Verdict

Overall, I may have at first picked this book solely based on the title and the cover, but I was mesmerized by its content.

Call me greedy, but I wanted more. A little less of the abstract storytelling and more of the escapism I found within the pages of this story.

I still highly recommend it as a relaxing and calming read.

The thing about love that binds is it seldom comes quickly. A love of place takes some settling,it involves uprooting and leveling and care. Mira learns these lessons over time in Athens. The Greeks historically gave held an enchanted place,surviving by their wits and wisdom long after their conquerors have gone. A captain retiring before he is really ready, a young woman settling her parents affairs and in the process learning to breathe maybe for the first time. And for more than one character the grace of letting go. A wonderful read.

<b><i>"our entire body, like it or not, enacts a stunning resurrection of the dead just as we advance toward our own death. We are, as you say, interconnected...In the most absolute tranquility or in the midst of tumultuous events, in safety or danger, in innocence or corruption, we are a crowd of others,"</b></i>

A Greek American "woman of a certain age" returns to her parent's apartment in Athens the summertime, months after they're both fatally killed in a car accident. On that alone, one might expect to find a thriller or mystery to follow such a tragic event.
However, given she begins with a quote by Elena Ferrante, I might've guessed this book's depth would be delving much deeper than a cheap thrill.

Instead, the book bounces between Mira, -a working writer without children who's still in love with a man she's no longer certain she wants to be with- and The Captain, a mature older man who prefers to sleep in his apartment next door to Mira's rather than return to his home, and his own wife and children.

Soon after arriving to Athens, Mira reconnects with some friends of hers who each carry their own burdens.
Nefeli, a brooding queer artist carrying a bitter broken heart forward into her political installations, and Fady, Dimitra and their son. It is through her interactions with them, that we are given an honest and imperfect tour of life in Athens.
<i>"...Nefeli and Fady and Dimitra were my connection to the present moment, a guide to a reality of this city, that as the American journalist Kevin Andrews had written decades earlier, was both the most intense and the least visible."</i>

While Mira's friends struggle to survive financially, they also assist an immigrant family in uniting, keeping a low profile in order to avoid the deportation of a young boy in their care.

Through all of this, MIra and The Captain's lives intersect, while they remain divided by the lives that lead them up to the present.

As a first time reader of Bakopoulos's work, I believe it is the equal facets of dark and light that can be seen on the streets of Athens that made this book stain my mind, as if it were a memory of a past trip I took.

If you're looking for a coming-of-age story for late bloomers, this is for you.
Bakopoulos' has written a book that's a salve for a sore heart, and I highly recommend it.

Thanks to #Netgalley for the review copy of #Scorpionfish and Congratulations to Natalie Bakopoulos!

This is an unusual and engaging read about two people- Mira and the Captain- who share beers and stories on their shared balcony in Athens as they work through their grief and anger. Mira's come back from the US after the death of her parents and betrayal by her boyfriend. The Captain is mourning his marriage. Mira talks a lot about her friends, including a couple raising a refugee boy, and Nefali, who will become more important the deeper you read into the novel. It's hard to describe - the image is lovely but it's not really plot driven. You get both Mira and the Captain's perspectives; hers is more fleshed out than his but that's consistent with his character. I enjoyed this very much but it does take a bit of patience in spots. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Thank you to Tin House Books for the Advanced Copy received through NetGalley.

I really am unsure of how to even write a review for this. And that's not because I disliked it, but because I'm not sure if I liked it.

It was an interesting story, but the plot was so all over the place it seemed like there were mini-plots that seemingly existed even though there was no grand plot. It was also like the story was being told from the present, but also from the future? Like the narrators (Mira and The Captain) would be in the present living a moment, but then add a snippet of their life from the future? Very confusing. I wanted more from specific aspects of this book. And what it actually provided, are the things I could've actually cared less about. I didn't really enjoy Nefeli, even though I feel like I was meant to. I enjoyed Rami, but was indifferent about Dimitra, Fady and Leila. It was like they weren't who mattered, and Rami was only there to provide Mira something to do. Aris was actually the worst. I disliked him, both because of how he treated Mira and also because of how he was such a dick in general. When it comes to The Captain, I was interesting in his relationship with Katerina and what happened with her unspoken lover. However I also wanted SO MUCH MORE from the "relationship" that was brewing between him and Mira. It was there, yet it was non-existant and this frustrated me to no end.

My main issue with the book was that it had no plot, like I've previously mentioned. I'm realizing now, that the only reason I was remotely interested in it is because I was waiting for something to happen the whole time. Not just the romance I had hoped for, but anything, something interesting. I didn't get that until the second to last page, and only briefly. And it really only wrapped up this mini-plots that I only kind of cared about.

The ending, like the rest of the book, left something to be desired. It was this whole book about internal conflict and relationships yet, everything seemed to be wrapped up in a bow. But not a pretty bow, a messy bow that kind of looks good from one angle, but looks completely disastrous from another angle.


I was looking forward to this book because I thought it would be a lot more than it ended up being, and I'm simply disappointed.

Thank you so much to net galley for sending me a copy of this book. I really fell in love with this book and would love to have other people read this book.

Scorpionfish is a lovely novel about the a woman finding herself. Mira, a Greek-American academic returns to Athens to clean out the apartment of her recently-dead parents. While there, her long-term boyfriend breaks up with her. She’s on summer break from her university and is now “in between” multiple relationships, and grieving, all while relearning her place in her Greek family—and having her views of certain family members reshaped as various “scandals” are revealed. Mira shares a balcony, separated from her neighbor by a sheet of textured glass. She and “the Captain” spend hours revealing their souls, but not their bodies, to each other.

The prose was lovely, lyrical at times. The points of view are split between Mira and the Captain, with Mira claiming a bit more time and a bit more action. The Captain, too, is “in between” as his marriage is floundering.

Having spent time in Athens, including Kifisia, a suburb Bakopoulos often mentions, I found she perfectly captured the essence of Greek life. I remember the oil crisis of the 1970s in which my apartment building in Kifisa allowed heat only one hour in the morning and one in the evening, much as mentioned by Kakopoulos.

Scorpionfish looks at how people define themselves. Mira’s parents left Greece for a better life. Her father fully Americanized while her mother remained lost in the States, even becoming an alcoholic to deal with her loss. Though her family returns to Greece on vacations, Mira is trapped between these extremes. It was interesting to compare Scorpionfish with another recent book about immigration: How Fires End by Marco Rafalà in which Sicilian immigrants refashion their home in America.

Scorpionfish is told through alternating narration, both characters struggling with loss and at a crossroads in their life. I preferred one to the other, but was intrigued by both. The style of writing is hard to describe. The actual conversations between characters are dotted with internal reflection of conversations they have had or will have. It makes sense and gives the story a tension or suspense of what might come as well as invoking nostalgia for something that just happened- it’s hard to explain but works really well. I enjoyed learning more about Greece and Greek culture along the way.

Thank you to Tin House Books and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available July 7th 2020

Set in the sultry, decadent and decaying Athens, Natalie Bakopoulos's second novel, "Scorpionfish" passes like a slow mirage. Dealing with the unexpected death of her parents, young academic Mira returns to her childhood home to reconcile with her past. She meets Capitan, an elder Greek man with his own demons, and Nefeli, a queer artist bringing light to contemporary Greek issues. As readers, we are transported with her to a Greece that revitalizes the olden days with equal parts passion and restraint. Bakopoulos's romantic prose will allure any reader to this salty city, so central to the story itself.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House Books for the ARC of Scorpionfish by Natalie Bakopoulos in exchange for an honest review. Immediately I was attracted to the cover as well as the synopsis. A young academic named Mira goes back to Athens and encounters a retired ship captain. Shortly into returning home her longtime boyfriend Aris breaks up with her for a movie star while Mira is immediately transported back into the lives of her friends Fady and Dimitra who are caring for a young refugee boy named Rami and her queer artist aunt/friend Nefeli who came of age during the time of a military dictatorship in Greece. This novel has a lot of meat and to put it simply, I enjoyed it.

Scorpionfish has drawn comparisons to an Elena Furrente novel and I can see it. This novel is equal parts lush and violent. Athens is a beautiful city and almost paradise on the surface with rich history and culture but it is suffering a lot of social and economic hardship. There is street violence, crime, and people who aren’t able to keep up with the financial strain of living there. This novel does an excellent job showing both sides of Athens in a realistic and heartfelt way.

The novel is told in two POVs. Mira is the young academic who just lost her parents. She has tenure and I believe she is working on her dissertation. She left Chicago to return to Greece which is where she grew up and the place where her mother always felt attached to. In a way, Mira expects to pick up her life where she left off. Her plan consisted of moving in with her boyfriend Aris but it’s derailed since he got a movie star pregnant. That paired with his rising political career is what drives a wedge between their relationship. Throughout the novel we see more “action” from Mira’s POV. Two of her friends have a daughter named Leila and they’re caring for a refugee boy named Rami. Dimitra and Fady are in a relationship together and it’s through them that Mira is able to have a social life. Meanwhile Nefeli is Mira’s aunt who is an artist and activist of sorts. Late into the book it is revealed that Nefeli is sick with little chance for survival.

The second POV is told from The Captain’s perspective. He shares a balcony with Mira and the two of them get close after having conversations about life, careers, and love. The Captain’s father is described as a leftist and he knew Nefeli through his father. The Captain is also suffering through a break up, his wife and mother of his nine year old twins, Katerina wants a divorce. The Captain and Mira have an intimate friendship while drinking their beers and talking. The Captain’s POV chapters aren’t really as action-packed as Mira’s and I never developed a connection with him. His chapters are some of the weaker points of the novel for me.

This is an easy read. The novel is rich and elegant in language with a setting that is easy to get into. My only complaint is that I don’t find it particularly memorable which is why I’m giving it three stars.

Previously I had read “The Green Shore” by this author and when I saw her newest book I was very excited to read it. I love how she gave a social and modern historical context in the book. It felt like there was a thin veil that I looked through as I read kind of somber, yet hopeful. The characters were interesting and flawed in their skin which made it believable. I love the setting of Greece (in both her books) and all of the rich cultural ties; food, language, and more. Bravo!

Bakopoulos sets the rhythm of Scorpionfish to that of the heartbeat of modern Athens. Identity is a concept that Athens has always grappled with, something that continues to this day. In Scorpionfish, we meet a woman who returns to Greece after living in the States and watch as she, too, grapples with the idea of identity. I fell deep into Bakopoulos' story. I still find it lurking in my mind. If anything, Scorpionfish, just as Modern Athens, has the power to change the way you think about the world around you and what part you play.

Scorpionfish is an epic and captivating novel. Well-written and clearly drawn. This my first introduction to this author, but I will gladly return to read another work.

Ultimately, Scorpionfish was the most perfect read for this particular time in my life, when I, myself, am on a journey to finding my life's purpose and who, what, and where I should be cultivating more of. It had me pondering about the sudden changes I've endured in my life - changes that have recently given me great anxiety for fear of the unknown, and yet also making me wonder about the great opportunities that lie ahead. While the story itself took a while for me to get into, the prose was smooth and mesmerizing.

Although I have experienced loss and grief (maybe to the extent of Mira, maybe not), I lack the types of relationships/friendships she has, the experience of travel and culture that has shaped her in many ways, her age and wisdom, and I certainly have no connection to Athens or her Greek culture. None of this mattered, though. Scorpionfish was simply a beautiful, enjoyable read that I am sure will be greatly popular upon publication. Bakopoulos's talent is a gift to the world.

Fabulous look at Greece (Athens especially), and a quietly moving lyrical story of love -and loves disappointments.