Review: Amazing and insightful story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 30, 2013
"Moscow Dreams" by Julia Gousseva is one of the most captivating and engaging books I have read in some time.The teenage heroine, Marina, is preparing for her future education with a view to Linguistic and English language when the 1991 political developments in the Soviet Union bring uncertain and volatile times for her and her peers.In the struggle for Democracy Gorbachev is being kidnapped, McDonalds opens a restaurant in Moscow, Yeltsin announces the end of the Soviet Union and the end of the Communist Party.Reading about it as it is being told from the perspective of a teenage girl I feel that I understood the dynamics of the times only now properly for the first time. Marina and her friends experience the changes together but every one of them has different dreams, different goals and different backgrounds.While the political changes aren't always good (food rationing and crime waves to name but two) the characters reflect perfectly the conflicting emotions and experiences of the new era.Marina and her friends are great characters that not only drive the plot easily but they are people you can perfectly relate to. Gousseva does an excellent job at showing the unique moment in time in modern Russian history for us foreigners from the West, so we can understand better how it impacted personally and in a wider cultural context.Giving us some historical and political background and fleshing it out with youthful romance Moscow Dream is exactly the kind of novel I love.Written in excellent prose, perfect pacing and just the right amount of emotions this is a touching, informative and wonderful reading experience that I cannot recommend enough.