Reviews - Vita Nostra | The StoryGraph

2.78k reviews for:

Vita Nostra

Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

4.02 AVERAGE

fionagerman's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

I didn't have a scooby doo what was happening in this book. Ut mind you neither did the main character. The way the story and mystery unfolded was a treat. This is translated and there were some cultural aspects that were difficult to understand but that's the reality of translated works.

wybohoukes's review against another edition

3.75

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

raymo_reads_good's review against another edition

3.0

I might change my mind about the star rating, maybe it's a 3.5?

I felt the story got better and gained momentum as it went along (or maybe it was the fact that my loan was about to end and the book was no longer carried by my library, so when time was up, that was it).

This book is about a young woman going off to University and finding out who she is, but it's a fantasy so she's discovering a whole new world.

I really struggled with certain aspects of the story, namely middle aged men telling Sasha what to do with her body, in a sexual context. Even the first "challenge" the strange man she encounters in the beginning coerces her into swimming naked in the sea each morning. I don't care about the context, it's icky, and the same effect could've been produced in other ways.

I did enjoy reading about Russian people from a Russian perspective.

There is another book in this series, although I don't know if it's been translated. If it was available in English at the library I would at least start reading it.

kalliegrace's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

This is a really enchanting and propelling book, you have so many questions from page one and only accumulate more through the end. I wish the characters, especially the other students, had been developed a little more, and I can't actually wrap my head around the magic system still. Even with those flaws this was still really fun to spend time with and I might look for the next book in the series.

sterling8's review against another edition

4.0

This is an uncategorizable book. It's a bit like The Magicians, true, but is very much its own weird thing. It's a bit like Amatka by Karin Tidbeck too, in that reality is malleable in this book. Kafka also comes to mind.

Sasha, a teenage girl, is chosen by a mysterious figure to enroll in a special school. This school is dedicated to breaking down the way that the students think of themselves and rebuilding them again with a new purpose. Students physically change, become strange, become removed from the world as they become obsessed with their study. There's a threat to their loved ones hanging over all the students, so none of them want to wash out, but it's a very strenuous program and success is by no means assured. They can't even figure out what they are being groomed for because their professors tell them that it's too soon for them to understand.

Sasha fears for her family, true, but she has an aptitude for this study and wants to become proficient for her own sake. But there are emotional barriers that she has a hard time breaking past, connections that she can't quite sever.

It's a weird book. It's a very literal take of what education is supposed to do- make you into a different person than you were before. But it's also very metaphysical and sort of hard to wrap your brain around. Is it fantasy, science fiction, literature, philosophy? It might be a little of all of it.