Review: A Realistic Snapshot of a Chaotic Time from a Personal Perspective
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 29, 2013
This was such a great read. Being in the middle of the chaotic turmoil of Moscow in 1991 and witnessing history unfold is enough suspense for a good story. Throw in how it affects a teenage girl with all the uncertainty and fear, and now you have a great story.The telling of Marina is expertly done in conveying real human emotion amidst a historic time. The fear, the suspense, it all seems so real, it is as if you could feel Marina's heartbeat. A gripping tale that reminds me of a passage from Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, "Everything had changed suddenly-the tone, the moral climate; you didn't know what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgment you respected. At such a time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute-life or truth or beauty-of being ruled by it in place of the man-made rules that had been discarded. You needed to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good."I know Dr. Zhivago is from a different era, but that raw human emotion is there, and like Boris Pasternak, Julia Gousseva has captured the essence of it in her writing. Just being compared to Pasternak is a major compliment, one that is richly deserving.I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can highly recommend it for the classic style of writing and for the historic value. Well done!