Helpful Score: 1
Impressive debut novel! Taking inspiration from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Irina Reyn brings Anna's character into the 21st century. In Reyn's imagination, Anna is a Russian-Jewish immigrant living in New York. In a comfortable marriage to an older man, Anna feels restless and unfulfilled, and begins a reckless affair with her cousin Katya's boyfriend.
I loved absolutely everything about this novel - from the mesmerizing descriptions, to novel's tragic sense of humor and the hopeless characters. Being a Russian immigrant myself, and having dated Bukharian men, I constantly found myself thinking, "Yes! This is exactly how things work!" while reading the book. Reyn's chapter on the "Great Russian Soul" was priceless; her take on the Jewish-Russian immigrants in NYC and the Bukharian community was dead-on.
This is not a happy-ending novel; the characters can be thought of as hopeless, self-centered, and to have no redeeming qualities. However, that was part of the novel's appeal. I've found that there are few books that stay away from the cliche everything-works-out endings, and Reyn was definitely not afraid to take that chance. A stellar debut on all counts!
I loved absolutely everything about this novel - from the mesmerizing descriptions, to novel's tragic sense of humor and the hopeless characters. Being a Russian immigrant myself, and having dated Bukharian men, I constantly found myself thinking, "Yes! This is exactly how things work!" while reading the book. Reyn's chapter on the "Great Russian Soul" was priceless; her take on the Jewish-Russian immigrants in NYC and the Bukharian community was dead-on.
This is not a happy-ending novel; the characters can be thought of as hopeless, self-centered, and to have no redeeming qualities. However, that was part of the novel's appeal. I've found that there are few books that stay away from the cliche everything-works-out endings, and Reyn was definitely not afraid to take that chance. A stellar debut on all counts!
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