The Revolution of Marina M.

This is where I ve been for the last decade working on one novel, The Revolution of Marina M. If you know me from my first two books, White Oleander and Paint It Black, both set in my home town of Los Angeles, you might be surprised to see a book set during the Russian Revolution But as Toni Morrison once advised writers If there s a book that you want to read, but it hasn t been written yet, then you must write it I m one of those people Elif Batuman described in her book < [...]

NOW AVAILABLE MIDNIGHT, NEW YEAR S EVE, three young witches gathered in the city that was once St Petersburg Though that silver sound, Petersburg, had been erased, and how oddly the new one struck our ears Petrograd. A sound like bronze Like horseshoes on stone, hammer on anvil, thunder in the name Petrograd. No longer Petersburg of the bells and water, that city of mirrors, of transparent twilights, Tchaikovsky ballets, and Pushkin s genius Its name had been changed [...]

At first I saw nothing Then, way up at the end of Nevsky, a black dot appeared A bit of red As I watched the dot grew into a bobbing mass, adorned with small smears of scarlet Now a noise, faint, like the whispering of waves on a pebbly beach, a low gravelly chatter, arose and soon echoed off the buildings and rolled down the boulevard The marchers were chanting but we weren t close enough to hear the words Varvara squeezed my arm I squeezed back We felt the shimmering possibility that t At firs [...]

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers To view it, click here I m grateful to BOTM for sending me an ARC of this book I have to say, I feel like the only person in the world who didn t fall head over heels for this novel I loved White Oleander, and I fully expected the same clarity of voice, the same forward drive of the story as Fitch displayed in her seminal work Unfortunately, all of that was completely lacking for me I found the story rambled from chapter to chapter, and wh [...]

So soon after reading The Heart s Invisible Furies by John Boyne I really didn t see myself being able to sit down and ingest another long and emotionally charged saga a girl needs to recharge between such books, they are awesome but mentally and physically draining But the book gods sometimes throw two such books at you so close together and of course I just couldn t help myself, who needs sleep and tissues are on sale since it s Winter, so I m covered I love everything Russian well at lea So s [...]

End of Book 1 I only just now realized that this epic story is not the end of our journey together with Marina M I m not exactly sure how to feel about that, but for now let s just focus on this the first book The Revolution of Marina M is the story of Marina growing up in Russia and going through her own revolution parallelled to the Russian revolution of 1917 Marina is a dynamic character who starts out as a giggly, studious and passionate girl growing up in the aristocracy of Petrogr End of B [...]

Oof I love Janet Fitch so this is a hard review to write but this book was painfully dull I started with high hopes Marina is a very likable character and the Russian revolution is a vibrant and electric setting for a coming of age story The beginning of the novel was well done, with our young heroine naively living the good life, sharing her expectations for her future, engaging in a youthful love affair, dreaming of a fancy life with her friends And then everything goes to shit, literally Oof [...]