Reviews - Anastasia | The StoryGraph

1.17k reviews for:

Anastasia

Sophie Lark

4.05 AVERAGE

liaver's review

4.75

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

clari100723's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

chuspinawi's review

3.5

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

kellysavagebooks's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

annadali's review against another edition

*Possibly mild spoilers! (Sorry for the spoiler warnings all the time, just wanna be safe 😭🙏)

Getting right into it, I’ll say that this book was really entertaining!! Although I feel like it took a WHILE for the plot to take off (aka ~60%… which is when things got INSANE, and by INSANE I mean IN. SANE.), I was still really entertained! I’m a sucker for court dynamics/(petty) drama and all that good stuff so y’all KNOW I was here for this 🙂‍↕️

I will say, was confused by a few things, though… namely the magic system, the world building, and the development of Anastasia and Damien’s relationship… 💀 Ok, so, for the magic system, I feel like I sort of have a grasp on it, but I don’t think I could fully explain its intricacies. I did understand it well enough to follow the story, but was still a tad confused at times (especially at the beginning). This could totally just be my bad though 😭🙏 As for the world building, I feel like things would be mentioned without initially being explained and then were explained later. While I ultimately understood most of everything, it did make things a bit confusing initially. Now, for Anastasia and Damien… they went from LOATHING to loving, ADORING each other, and I feel like it happened a tad… out of nowhere? Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention to fully grasp the development. Oh well 😪

Ok, this DIVA deserves her own little shout out because she was probably (who am I kidding, she definitely is) my favorite character in this book. ARTEMIS. ARTEMIS I LOVE YOU SO FREAKING MUCH. She is so sassy and funny and I LOVE IT. I also LOVE to see the softer moments where we see just how much she cares about Anastasia and how much Anastasia cares about her 🥹

Also, the last 10% was… 🙂 Uhm… Let’s just say something I don’t generally like seeing in stories happened in this book and I don’t know how to feel 💀 Ultimately pretty wholesome ending, though 🙂‍↕️

(Also… stopping this to read Onyx Storm might not have, in retrospect, been the best move… 🤞😀)

Overall, I was really engaged with the story from the start! 🙂‍↕️

mintypenguin1's review

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

taliyahslibrary's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“I asked myself, why are we so obsessed with Anastasia? It’s because of our dream of what we wish she could have been. What we wish Russia could have been. Ultimately this story became a fantasy of what our world could be like if we had leaders who loved the people more than themselves. That’s what Anastasia has come to symbolize to people all over the world—a people’s princess, someone who lived like everyone else and developed compassion. Someone on team human.” –Sophie

This excerpt from Sophie Lark‘s Forward perfectly encapsulates what this book is about. It is a long road and honestly you might be hesitant about it at first. You might contemplate DNFing but don’t, just trust me. It’s so worth it. And reading about what motivated Sophie to continue writing even when SHE wanted to give up, just further proves how important and impactful this book is.

I will say the audiobook was INCREDIBLE. Both male and female voice actors brought the story to life. I felt as though I knew each character inside out. Like I myself was in the story watching everything unfold.