San Frascisco Book Review:
"1989 was a chaotic time. There were earthquakes, massive revolutions, and Seinfeld premiered. The Pigs' Slaughter is a book about the revolution in Romania. Written by Florin Grancea, he gives us a window into the world of Romania during those last days of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. It is a hybrid story about a boy becoming a man and a country learning to walk. While "freedom" runs rampant, all Florin can wish for are new shoes. The book makes strong comparisons to many different themes. Topics ranged from the French Revolution, to horrors of World War 2, to the War on Terror. Each small snippet helps create, and explain, Grancea's life and philosophy. The plot centers around a poor Romanian family, as they celebrate Christmas, and are ecstatic for change in their government. Grancea is almost nostalgic about how life was back during Ceausescu's reign. He remembers that people were suffering, but they were more self-sufficient. At one point, he recalls a time when pork tasted like pork and not the slated industrialize meat that he came to know later on. The book's best qualities are that it is both emotional and informative. Grancea makes you care about every single person in that book, and they feel real. Grancea masterly jumps from time period to time period, to give the reader a greater view of independent events. It creates a great flow, and it keeps the reader fascinated. I feel that this book knows no boundaries. It is more than a biography, it is a prestigious piece of history, but overall, it is a seriously outstanding book. The events of that Christmas in 1989 will forever be etched into Florin Grancea's mind. Now, thanks to this unforgettable book, the world will never forget it as well".
Pacific Book Review:
"The Pig's Slaughter reveals history in a truly unique way. Unforgettable in its realism and humanism, this book will be etched indelibly into your memory and pondered often when some of the circumstances of history are brought to mind. Florin Grancea gives us all a gift with his fine work, as his book is destined to seek critical acclaim and many reader accolades (...) One could sense English is not Florin Grancea's native language as his well written first person autobiographical narrative takes the reader deep into the historical Communist mindset in The Pigs' Slaughter. Grancea uses many short sentences, mostly factual statements without embellished adjectives; nothing more - nothing less than necessary, analogous to the subsistence of the Romanian population back in the latter part of the 1900's".
Author review:
Undoubtedly, "The Revolution WILL be televised" was the main players' motto. Most Romanians only saw their revolution on their small black and white televisions while others were the actors, willing and uninformed.... The Revolution ruthlessly took more than it gave - beautiful bodies, healthy food, cultivated culture, tested tradition. In the end, communism's empty materialism was simply traded for western society's empty materialism, which happily did away with what the Eastern Block years had inefficiently leftover. The hungry people of before 1989 have been transformed into obese people. Instead of queuing for meagrely rationed bread they now queue to buy imported foods in overpriced hypermarkets. It's time the world heard this true story of Romania's Revolution, because most Romanians took only a couple of years to realize how little western culture had to offer.
