The Revolution of Marina M.

I enjoyed this book; it was quite the adventure. It was very interesting to read a novel set during the Russian revolution, a part of human history I haven't really given much thought to, written by an American woman. Russian was always this great "other" in my mind. An enemy country not to be trusted, nor even understood by us in the United States. A place few visited or even wanted to visit. I've read a few of the great Russian novels like Anna Karenina, attempted The Brothers Karamazov and well, meh to this corn fed, white midwesterner.

I might have enjoyed this book more but I kind of hated the main character Marina. She was just too self assured, too smart, too tough, too much like a man. Too everything. She lacked nuance, humility, weakness, a certain sense of neurotic-ism. So it was hard to relate to her, to care that much about someone I was not at all similar to. So that kind of detracted from my total immersion into the story. Also, it was like 50 shades of Russia, lol. I mean, sure, I know people have sex, even during the early 20th century Russian revolution, but did it need to be so prominent? Maybe I'm getting prudish in my old age, haha. But though I can't say it ruined the story, it also didn't really add that much to the narrative either.

So yeah, this is good, worth a read. Always interesting. I will definitely read part two when I get a chance.