Review: Growing pains of a nation and a young woman
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 14, 2013
I'm a better person for having known Marina. She is intelligent, sensitive, honest and passionate and I hope I can meet her someday. But I can't actually meet her in real life. She only exists in this wonderful story. She comes to life with such honesty, I feel like I know her. We see what she sees and feel what she feels. We witness a wonderful and terrifying world through her eyes. Marina comes of age just as her country comes of age, growing from adolescence to adulthood just as the old Soviet Union follows the same path.While reading this wonderful story, I felt the growing pains of a young woman and a nation. Marina's country learns that there is a price to pay for freedom. With freedom comes greed and the darker side of humankind. But Marina's wise grandmother reminds her that greed has always existed. It took on a different form in the lust for power but the end result was the same. People sometimes do evil things to get what they want.As a nation goes through a metamorphosis more dramatic than a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, Marina transforms into a young woman. We feel the first traces of new and unusual feelings as Marina experiences them. It begins with just a concern for an outspoken classmate. He may have crossed the line speaking out against the old hard line of the communist party. We are concerned for Nikolai. He is passionate and honest and we don't want him to get in trouble. Concern turns to respect and then friendship and then something else.But Marina knows she needs to stay focused on her schoolwork if she is going to fulfill her dream. Her dream is to have a job that offers her the ability to travel; just like her father. She knows she needs to devote her time to her studies and yet we feel these other emotions pulling Marina away from her studies and toward something else; love.I highly recommend taking this journey to charming Moscow, Leningrad and the beautiful beaches of the Black Sea. It may even remind you of the first time you fell in love.