Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Secrets We Kept: The sensational Cold War spy thriller

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The Secrets We Kept: The sensational Cold War spy thriller by Lara Prescott

7 reviews

kristinj1's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious sad fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Overall I just really enjoyed this book. It is this really clever combination of American and Russian history, wrapped up in a story of literary intrigue and romance. I really liked the way the book moved through. Of time, taking chunks of years and then going back and forth between the East and the west. I will admit, sometimes I did have trouble keeping track of who was who, particularly among the women in the typing pool. In the end, however, I think that was okay because they talked about themselves as a group very often. We saw this, we got together for this, we remembered this. As far as a different kind of plot line, I had never read anything about this period of time in these efforts to deliver propaganda into the Soviet union. It's fascinating to know that this sort of work to deliver Dr Zhivago back across the border into the USSR actually happened.

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mnboyer's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

In the middle of the Cold War, secretaries become spies and get involved in a plot to smuggle "Dr Zhivago" manuscript(s) out of Russia -- okay, books about famous books, count me in! Now, that is not to say that I genuinely would pitch this to people as a 'spy novel' because a lot of the spy stuff is lacking... there's not as much mystery and intrigue there as there should be. It is also fair to say that this is largely in part to to the fact that Lara Prescott weaves her own love story into this book, and that love story takes a little more front seat. Nonetheless, it was an interesting story about how many people were involved in trying to get "Zhivago" published -- how many people were actually going to risk their lives for a book.

Okay so here's the question... how true is this 'based on a true story' book. Well, the CIA was heavily involved in smuggling "Zhivago" out of the USSR so that they could publish it in the US. They were then involved in smuggling it back into the USSR so it could be published and distributed there as well. Boris Pasternak and Olga Ivinskaya were lovers and Olga really was the muse for one of the characters in his novel -- she did go to great lengths and through many USSR interrogations where the USSR wanted to know more about the novel, what Boris was doing, etc., and she never gave Boris up (to our knowledge). All of this was discussed in 2014, when the CIA suddenly started talking about their efforts to save "Zhivago"... I don't know why the CIA gives up their own secrets and stories, but, hey, it makes for good literature.

The book was written in Italian at one point, the CIA had it translated back to Russian, and sight unseen the USSR had banned it. There's just a lot going on! And then you add women typists who were all involved in this espionage and you end up with this novel. Sure, the two main characters are not 'real' and are fictionalizations. Sure, their love story is therefore its own fiction. But, the larger things going on really did happen.

Now, be forewarned, there are discussions or rape and violence in the novel. Spoiler: Olga is pregnant when sent to a gulag in Russia for not giving Pasternak up, and she ends up losing the baby (we do know that Olga did lose a baby, Pasternak remained married, and he never gave her the option to have another child after the closing of this novel, which actually makes me feel pretty bad for Olga -- you can go to prison for this guy but he won't let you have his child, boo).

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I wish there was less focus on the romance that Prescott was creating between two lady spies and more focus on just being cool, kick ass spies... but that's really just a personal opinion. I just wish we could have a spy/espionage novel with women as main characters who are solely focused on their job, not finding romance (this seems near impossible in the historical fiction world, as every woman out there apparently has to find a soulmate). 4 stars.

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buecherdiebin's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

This book seemed quite promising at the start but turned out to be a big disappointment. I read it as an audiobook and I listened to the last 30% on 1.25 speed because I was bored out of my mind.

At first, I liked the idea of a typing-pool narrator, as it could show the we're-in-this-together mentality I can very well imagine developing between women in a misogynistic working environment. Irina was a character made for good character development, and all in all the focus on women in a male-dominated area a good idea. This had the setting and plot to be a thrilling and engaging feminist spy novel.

The book even got me truly excited when Sally showed up and Irina developed a big crush on her, as I was hoping for some gratuitous lesbianism as soon as I read about the female spies setting, and there all my hopes and dreams were coming true!

Unfortunately it went all downhill from there. I think there are two main problems with this book.

First, the spy part of the novel - which is the main focus of its marketing after all - is extremely underwhelming.

I thought the story was going to be about the main characters, Irina and Sally, procuring the novel, going behind the iron curtain, in constant, immediate and real danger of being caught. Instead we got non-characters getting the book out of the Soviet Union, and Sally and Irina just go to bookshops and fairs to acquire respectively distribute the book, never being in any real or palpable danger.

This might be historically accurate (?) but it doesn't make for a very thrilling book.

Second, there are way too many characters, and I didn't connect with any of them. Their stories, actions and emotions all seemed very wooden and rushed.

For example, the romance between Irina and Sally ended up leaving me completely cold, because we were never given any real reason why they liked each other. We spend barely any time with them falling in love, then all of a sudden, Irina gets engaged to Teddy, Sally and Irina confess their feelings and sleep together, then Sally decides she has to leave Irina, all in the space of like five minutes, without delving at all into their decision-making process. Irina is just fine with suddenly realizing she's into women? Why did she get engaged to Ted anyway? Why does Sally just give up and leave her? Why does she suddenly get fired for being a lesbian? I certainly don’t know, though it might be possible I slept through the relevant parts.

Prescott’s writing left me cold, because she didn't really dive into her characters' emotions, just described a series of actions and events.

Irina's mother gets sick and then dies (again in the space of five minutes, instead of setting her sickness up earlier and make it a growing dread throughout the book), and Irina barely has an emotion, she's still more upset about Sally leaving. At the end, Pasternak dies and the most emotion we see from Olga is a short sentence of "I wailed". Well, I stopped caring.

I read this book as an audiobook and I listened to the last 30% on 1.25 speed because I was bored out of my mind. The typists-narration I liked in the beginning ended up being a complete waste of time, because kept being told things that we already knew happened, or things that would have been much more captivating being told from the people actually concerned than some tepid second-hand account. For some reason there were even one or two boring chapters being told from Teddy's perspective and I have no clue why - I certainly did not care about Teddy,

whose only real character trait was that he wanted to be with Irina at all costs even if he had to live as a monk for the rest of his life, like... why?!

This book easily could have been 100 pages shorter and given the same amount of information, or if it had to be this long, at least focus on the really interesting stuff and its characters’ emotions and motivations, instead of biting off more than it could chew and not really getting to the bottom of any of it. I suppose I did end up learning a bit more about Doctor Zhivago, but I might have preferred just reading the Wikipedia article for that instead of listening to this for 10+ hours.

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rmperash's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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bibliocinephile's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

so the prose of this book was truly unique. it felt dense yet was a quick read, and striking that balance was really well done. however, in the middle, the plot became somewhat muddied by this desire to make some sort of esoteric prose of inner conflict. after that, the ending seemed a bit rushed for the build up of the story. the ending was the perfect amount of satisfying with a bit of a cliffhanger, and i mean hello it's gay

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kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

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informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.0

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earutherford's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

tw: sexual assault.

7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets the cold war era spies. The beginning is rough-it took the first 100 pages to set scene and get into the book for me. At first you don't really see how all the POVs are interconnected. But if you can make it though the first 100 pages, it's worth the read from there.

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