Tag: Russia

Disappearing Earth

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Julia Philips
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Pub. date: May 2019 (read Mar. 2020)

so 2020 is definitely not my best reading year. I always knew reading 100 books a year was not sustainable, but I’ve really struggled this year. I feel like I should be reading more books then ever during this pandemic, but I did just get a new puppy and have generally been feeling unmotivated when it comes to reading. That said, after giving it some thought, I think public transit might be one of my critical success factors. I spend about an hour on public transit every day and I always read during that time. So on top of the benefit of getting a consistent hour of reading in every day, it also forces me to stay super engaged with my books because I’m forced to pick them up every day. Without that I think I’ve just been feeling less inclined to pick up new books or stick with them through the early chapters.

Anyways, enough with the life update, the real goal here is to sit down and finally write a review for Disappearing Earth, which may be somewhat challenging as it took me 4 months to read and I finished it over a month ago. However, the length of time it took me to read is not at all indicative of how much I enjoyed the book. I made the mistake of starting this one at the beginning of my 5 week honeymoon in New Zealand over Christmas. I got about 40% in and then didn’t read anything for the rest of the vacation because I was having too much of a blast! So it was months later by the time I picked it up again.

Disappearing Earth is about 2 sisters in rural Russia who disappear one day while out visiting the beach. The disappearance rocks the community, impacting many who never even knew the girls, and serving to highlight the inequities that exist among the many community members.

The book has an interesting structure – each chapter is narrated by a different character and we never return to the same character twice. All of the characters are loosely connected in some way, but many are still strangers to each other. Regardless, they are all in some way impacted by the disappearance of the two girls.

While interesting, I do think the structure of the novel was one of the contributing factors to why it took me so long to read the book. It was a little disheartening to finish the end of a chapter and then feel like you had to start again with getting to know a new character. However, I do think the structure is one of the beauties of the book, so it’s not something I would change. The writing is fantastic and I loved how everyone was somewhat connected and somewhat impacted by the disappearance of the sisters. It really highlights the impact that tragedy can have on a community and how it can be perceived by different people.

Class, race, and gender are all important themes in Disappearing Earth. Many of the characters are native and while they lament the probable death of the girls, the community’s reaction to the disappearance of two young white girls mostly serves to highlight how native women are de-valued and de-prioritized by law enforcement and the general public. Culture is an important piece of this book and it is steeped in Russian culture and attitude, but I still found it a stark reminder of the inequalities here in our Canadian indigenous communities as well.

Atmosphere is one of the key parts of the book and a dark atmosphere pervades the entire novel. The disappearance of the sisters in the first chapter clouds a sense of unease over the entirety of the novel. All of the characters are struggling in some way or another, with some being made scared or uncomfortable by the disappearance of the girls, and others jaded about it. All the while you wonder if it will ever be revealed what happened to them, or if, like much of life, we’re destined to go on forever not knowing. The real pain and anguish of disappearance is the uncertainty and unknowing.

So I don’t think this book is for everyone. I wouldn’t call it a fast paced read and I do wish I had read it at a different time. It’s a heavy read, but with gorgeous and perceptive writing, I’m so glad that I stuck with it.

I Was Anastasia

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Ariel Lawhorn
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pub Date: Mar. 2018 (read June 2018)

I had pretty high expectations of this book and unfortunately it just did not live up to them. Anastasia was pretty much my favourite animated film growing up (even though it is not at all historically accurate) and I was super excited to read a whole book about the lost princess. Plus this book had the added intrigue of being written from two contrasting timelines.

I was Anastasia tells the story of the Romanov’s from two points of view. The first is from the POV of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, commencing at the Russian Revolution and leading towards the execution of the entire Romanov family. The second point of view is from a woman going under the name of Anna Anderson who claims to be the princess Anastasia. Anna’s story is told backwards, starting near the end of her life and chronicling her lifelong struggle to be formally recognized as the Grand Duchess.

I was super excited about the structure of this book, but it ended up not working for me at all. It’s a really interesting concept to tell a story backwards and I was definitely intrigued, but I felt it was very poorly executed. There were way too many names and dates and the timeline was constantly changing, so it was extremely difficult to keep track of what was happening and I eventually gave up. Plus the author would constantly end chapters on cliffhangers, but because the story was being told backwards, you would never re-visit that part of the story and it made everything feel very disjointed and de-valued the story because you were constantly meeting characters that only mattered for a chapter or two. It made character development very difficult and Anna Anderson a pretty unlikable character. Because I found her story difficult to follow, I was really only interested in Anastasia’s timeline and would dread every time I had to switch back to Anna (although to be honest, Anastasia’s story started dragging a little bit towards the end as well.)

There were still parts of this story I found interesting though. I’m going to talk about them below, but if you’re still interested in reading the book, than I would suggest not reading any further and not doing any prior research on the Romanov’s – just read the book. This has the potential to be an interesting read if you go into blind because of the way the author has written the story. So be aware that there are spoilers below and you shouldn’t read any further if you’re still planning to read this book.

So what I did like about this book is that I didn’t know Anna Anderson was actually a real person and this is where I think most of the enjoyment of this novel came from. I thought Anna was an entirely made up character and that the author was telling a fictional story to let us decide whether or not we thought Anna Anderson was actually Anastasia. I think this is the greatest strength of the book and I appreciated the authors note because she tells a story that makes you want to believe that Anna is actually Anastasia.

What I didn’t realize is that Anna Anderson is actually a real person and most of what is written in this novel about her is based on true events. Because there was so much secrecy surrounding the deaths of the Romanov’s, there was a great myth that maybe the youngest daughter had survived. There were many Anastasia impostors over the years, especially when it became known about the great wealth the Romanov’s had stored in the Bank of England. However, Anna Anderson is the most famous Anastasia impostor and she does deserve credit for keeping Anastasia and the Romanov’s legacy alive for many many years. She claimed to be Anastasia for over 50 years and had many supporters, many of who actually knew Anastasia, yet she was never able to successfully prove her claim.

I liked that, while the author did take some liberties, this was a historically accurate book. Both stories told in this book are based in fact and as horrific as they both are, they were very interesting to learn about. I can’t love this book because I did have a lot of problems with the timeline and I honestly just didn’t find the writing or the storytelling that compelling. But I learned a lot and I still appreciate what Lawhorn was trying to do with this book. Not a favourite for me, but an interesting read if you’d like to learn a bit more about Anna Anderson and the Grand Duchess Anastasia in her final year and a half of life.

June Monthly Challenge

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I was too busy in May to do a monthly challenge and I actually really missed it. I love the flexibility of just being able to pick any book you want off the shelf, which I rarely do anymore between my challenges, book club, and netgalley reads, but I felt like my reading was a bit aimless without any reading goals to work towards in May.

I’m super excited about my June reading challenge though and I think I’ve picked out 3 great books for it. Historical fiction was my favourite genre for many years, but I’ve been a little fatigued with it over the last few years because I feel the genre is over-saturated with WW1 and 2 novels and books about slavery. So I got a lot more into fantasy and discovered all these YA fantasy series that have huge online followings, but I am starting to get a bit fatigued with this genre now because while there’s so much out there, once you start reading a lot of it, it tends to get a bit repetitive.

In an effort to branch out a little more again and return to a genre I love, I’ve decided that in June my monthly challenge will be to:

Read 3 Historical Novels

It was really hard to narrow it down to just 3 books, because I do have a huge list of historical novels that I’ve been wanting to get to, so I tried to focus on reading about stories set in different countries and different time periods. The three books I picked are:

1. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
2. I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhorn
3. Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

 

I read Kristin Hannah’s other bestseller, The Nightingale, in 2015 with my book club and we all really liked it. My book club liked it a little more than me because this was when I was really getting fatigued with the WW1 and WW2 books, but I did still like it. The Great Alone is her new book and has been getting fantastic reviews – I bought a copy on sale in February and I’ve been trying to get to it ever since. I don’t like to know too much about my books when I start reading them, but this is set in Alaska in 1974 and examines the aftereffects of a former Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War when he returns to Alaska.

I Was Anastasia is a fairly new release, but I feel like I’ve been waiting to read this one since I first saw a synopsis of it months ago. This is actually my book club selection for June, so I’m happy to be able to combine two of my reading lists this month. This is a WW1 book, but bear with me because this sounds different than any other WW1 book I’ve ever read! It’s about the grand duchess Anastasia and her supposed execution with the rest of the Romanov’s during the Russian Revolution. There’s always been speculation that Anastasia may have survived and in this novel, a young girl shows up in Germany 3 years later claiming to be Anastasia. Was anyone else obsessed with 20th Century Fox’ version of Anastasia growing up? Because I was and I am super excited for some bestselling, historical fiction about her! I’m on a journey to the past with this one folks.

My last pick of the month is a brand new, not-yet-released book that I only heard about recently. I’m not even sure where I first heard about Fruit of the Drunken Tree, I think Goodreads may have featured it in one of the lists of their blog, but it sounds so good. It’s a debut novel by Ingrid Rojas Contreras that was inspired by her own life growing up in the 1990’s in Colombia. It’s a coming-of-age story during a period of great upheaval and violence in Colombia and features a piece of history that I am not knowledgeable about and haven’t seen featured in historical fiction before. A big thanks to Penguin Random House Canada, who happily provided me with an advance copy of this book so that I could include it in my monthly challenge.

The Bear and the Nightingale

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Rating: ⭐⭐.5
Author: Katherine Arden
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Historical Fantasy
Read: Nov. 2017

 

Well this was disappointing.

I have mixed feelings about how to rate it because the writing really was quite good and Arden created a very good sense of atmosphere in the novel. But the story just dragged on and on!

I found it hard to get into the plot and honestly for the first third of the novel I didn’t even really know what the plot was. The Bear and the Nightingale is set in this medieval version of Russia and focuses on the life of a young girl, Vasya, growing up in cold, northern, Rus. The story begins with her mother dying in childbirth and her nurse plying her with stories and fairytales about the spirits of the village.

The villagers believe in a number of different spirits – which I initially found very confusing because Arden never really explains them – and they leave gifts and sacrifices to the spirits in exchange for the protection of their village. Vasya is special because she can actually see the spirits – no one else can, they just trust in their existence.

The story finally gets going when the priest Konstantin shows up in the village and sees it as his task to convert the entire village to Christianity and save them from the demons. Vasya attends church out of duty, but continues to keep the old ways and Konstantin becomes determined to “save” her.

I did find the conflict between Konstantin and Vasya (Christianity and the old ways) interesting and very reminiscent of how colonizers and missionaries were determined to convert colonies to their ways and beliefs. But overall the story just felt too disjointed for me. Arden provided way too much background on Vasya’s childhood and I found the whole bear and winter-demon thing really confusing. Maybe I just didn’t get it, but I need some more context about where the bear came from and why the hell he cares about Vasya. It just all felt very contrived and too easily resolved at the end.

Overall I just thought it was weird and I never really got into it. A+ for the cover art, but I may take a pass on the rest of this series.