It was littered with humour and so descriptive that I could easily believe I was already there alongside Ben (in between peeling spuds and boning cod) as he staked out the various towns, cities, pubs and bars, meeting the queerest and dearest of folks, eating the weirdest concoctions and experiencing all the wonderful and sometimes dangerous (female) encounters along the way. Ben Aitken is definitely great at chopping potatoes but he's even better at slicing apart and serving a surprising mixture of stories from the country at the "heart of Europe". I really enjoyed the footnotes, which often added some welcome exposition to the main text and complimented the diary style.

I wasn't surprised to see the mixed opinions; I myself found some of the book's content questionable and expected there might be others who agreed with me. For example, we are close in age (I am a few years younger); we are from similar parts of the United Kingdom; and we have both experienced the 'reverse immigration' that is the focus of this book (I moved to Warsaw in 2020 for work). His task was to peel an interminable number of potatoes, then to chip them with a gadget, then to do the complicated work of de-boning kilos of cod. I found the last three of the forty chapters particularly flat: he delivered himself of some political and historical remarks, which have nothing much to do with Poland. WARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM.Adeptly balances personal ruminations on love, attraction, and friendship, with cultural evaluations that subvert British stereotypes of Polish citizens [. And whilst I appreciate the glimpses of Poland that we get (a whole tour around the country), unfortunately, the meandering and low-key first world problem experiences described in the novel didn't provide the indepth look into what living in Poland is really like, that I wanted. Even though I fully agree with him on these points a book like this is not the platform to share your political views and other convictions (do not feed bread to the ducks people, do not! Because the author decided to just describe his life in Poland in a diary like manner, there felt like no drive or forward movement in the novel. Poland has charming facets, strange quirks, and very alien customs (to me); but every day, I can find or learn something completely new.

This made it quite unmotivating to read as I wasn't particularly interested in the author's attempts to hike up a mountain in the dark Polish winter or failed romantic endeavours but more so the political and cultural environment. I think the author was too reliant on these to add meaning or credibility to his work, and it at times felt more like I was reading a Wikiquotes page. He seems to like Poland in the whole, but it doesn’t seem to change him much, which if he had, I would have found more interesting. A fascinating book […] We should know more than we do about Poland, a nation with which we have had centuries of interaction.

I have read many reviews which complain about the author and his personality, whilst others seem to not mind. As someone who very vaguely studied Poland's diaspora in England for geography, I was quite intrigued by the prospect of learning more about a country so antagonised by the British media. I don't see why it was necessary for the author to spend so much time detailing his smoking and drinking habits or describing his daily hangovers with such vividity. It wasn't love that took him but curiosity: he wanted to know what the Poles in the UK had left behind. Aitken includes interactions with a very wide range of folks, including ones who didn't speak (much) English from across the country (he makes several "field trips" to other cities).