Reviews - Vita Nostra | The StoryGraph

2.78k reviews for:

Vita Nostra

Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

4.02 AVERAGE

mcoliffee's review

4.0

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

xan_van_rooyen's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 28%

Despite this coming highly recommended from a friend, I'm just not enjoying the narrative. I don't feel any connection to the main character and the writing just isn't my cup of tea. Some 100 pages into a book I want to at least have some understanding of the plot and I am still baffled (and bored) so I'm going to set this aside.

jonsimonsen's review against another edition

4.0

3.5 rounded up for the compelling writing and fresh perspective on

Spoiler

magical education — this is a grown-up take on the effort and weirdness one might have to endure to become truly wizardly

. A major loss of points for the endless repetitiveness and fumbled ending.

buggy3411's review against another edition

1.0

medium-paced

I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t normally read things this obscure, or if maybe I just don’t get it- but this book was so complicated, so hard to get through, and made no sense to me.

I wanted to like it based on part one- but after those first hundred or so pages everything went downhill as for the story and for my enjoyment.

I think maybe it just went over my head and I’m missing the point of it unfortunately.

It’s an interesting concept? - however to me it more or so felt like a really messed up, weird ongoing fever dream.

The only reason I finished this is because I was really hoping near the end it would all make sense (like aha! I get it!) but it never did- along with the fact that I hate to DNF a book I paid good money for 😪

elenahect's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

As someone who slips very far into a main character's headspace and thought processes when engrossed in a book - Vita Nostra was a strange and unique read. I'd praise it as a cognitohazard if at least half the work wasn't from the combination of its surrealist horror and the new meds I was taking' side effects combining - but I can safely say, that of many books I've read where a 'supernatural school setting' is a main stage, this is the only book that deserves the tag of 'dark academia'.

fatsopandah's review against another edition

4.25

This book will break your brain. This is a good thing. Enjoy the weirdest fantasy you've read in a while

just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Alright I have had my eye on this one for a while. It's dark academia and magic (a fav combo for me). And August being women in translation month (yes, I know this is written by a couple, so it's only half a woman in translation, but the translator is female too...), it seemed like the time to give it a go. (The authors are Ukrainian, but the novel's original language is Russian.)

Y'all this book was weird. Like, esoterically, creepily, weird. Like "whatttttttt did I just read?" weird. Now I get that the MC, Sasha, does not know what's going on (or what's she being taught at her secluded and secretive university) for most of the book either. So it makes sense that she isn't able to clearly explain or describe it to us as readers. But it is unmooring to not understand a book, conceptually, for the majority of the reading experience. Don't get me wrong, I loved the vibes. It was like the perfect level of extremely dark academia energy. And I don't even think I minded the slower paced plot, because the scene and aura setting, and character and "world" development, were so visceral.

However, I just felt, the whole time, like the story was just beyond my grasp; theoretical to the point that I felt close to understanding, but my fingertips *just* couldn’t ever touch it. Like, I think I get that each person is a word, conceptually, which is attached to their personality and powers, in real life. And Sasha is special, a password that can open a new universe/reality/dimension or something. And then their power comes from being able to create or manipulate words? But not real words, like concepts of words that are always-changing and can only be seen/manipulated in their minds, not be written down? But even if that is right, I have no idea how to actually "get" it. If that's what the students at the school felt like over their years of study, no wonder they had to be coerced into enrolling/staying. It was kind of infuriating. Which also, like, great writing, to make me feel that deeply as a reader. Finally, what was that ending?! Like, Sasha ascended? Into a concept? She isn't human/real? Whoa. I think.

Anyways, wow this is philosophical and enigmatic and absolutely inscrutable. I *think* I understood enough to respect the completely out-of-the-box thinking and writing it took to create this story. And I tip my hat to the authors for that. But I am not sure that respect is enough to pull me to keep reading and finish the series. I am going to recommend it if it sounds like it's up your alley, because truly the writing was really great, but I will be leaving my time with this story here.

“Yes, Sasha, as they say, you are a disaster and a gift in one little bottle.”

“All the world’s a text. […] And all the men and women merely words.”

“Fear is a projection of danger [...] genuine or imagined. The thing you wear around your neck is a phantom fear, the kind you get used to...kind of like a familiar sprain. Nothing happened. But you believe in trouble, and that is why you lived through these minutes as if through a real tragedy."

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