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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An interesting view on a romance novel. You want to feel bad for the main character but he’s just annoying as I feel he digs himself this hole. Pity him slightly.
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The edition I own comes with two other stories, one of which is "A Nasty Business" and is the funniest thing I've read from Dostoevsky.
White Nights itself is a fine short story exploring loneliness and the desire for connection in the form of love. It's well written and short to the point the recent buzz around it makes sense.
White Nights itself is a fine short story exploring loneliness and the desire for connection in the form of love. It's well written and short to the point the recent buzz around it makes sense.
emotional
sad
fast-paced
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
fast-paced
Onestamente abbastanza insulso, lui è un disilluso che non sa vivere nel mondo reale, lei una facile e infantile.
"Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they don't hurt anybody. They will dry, Nastenka."
OMG.OMG.OMG.
This man is a total SIMP. Ah, Dostoevsky has done it again. He has such a unique way of writing stories that captivates readers into experiencing the same pain the character feels. As I read this, I felt myself sympathizing with the protagonist's pain and solitude. Although, we never find out his name, he is referred to as the "dreamer" in the story which captures his tendency to immerse himself in his own thoughts and fantasies about idealized romantic possibilities. I don't think I will ever dislike anything written by Dostoevsky but I am not giving this 5 stars because the ending was so predictable (which makes sense but also really annoying because I yearn for unpredictability).
OMG.OMG.OMG.
This man is a total SIMP. Ah, Dostoevsky has done it again. He has such a unique way of writing stories that captivates readers into experiencing the same pain the character feels. As I read this, I felt myself sympathizing with the protagonist's pain and solitude. Although, we never find out his name, he is referred to as the "dreamer" in the story which captures his tendency to immerse himself in his own thoughts and fantasies about idealized romantic possibilities. I don't think I will ever dislike anything written by Dostoevsky but I am not giving this 5 stars because the ending was so predictable (which makes sense but also really annoying because I yearn for unpredictability).
4.5 Stars.
If you didn't like this book , you probably didn't get it .
Fyodor's genius story is not just about two people meet and instantly one of them fall in love with the other . no .
It's about how fragile human soul is . how desperate we are for love , even when we can't admit it , or don't want to admit it . It's not about a simple boring man , who wonders around at night and meets a random girl . it's about a lost spirit who can't cope with people easily ,because they cannot see the world as he sees it . he doesn't see himself as unsocial , because he can connect to things in a way people don't get. he notices the houses on his street . he knows the people's faces . but he can't commit to the social conventions of saying hi and chatting , talking about everyday's none sense , for him , it doesn't work like that .
I like reading about these kinds of characters because it reminds me of my own character (or personality ) ; i totally get being socially awkward , or feeling like you don't belong to the same world that the people around you are living in, maybe that's another reason that made me fall in love with this story .
There's something in Fyodor's style that's just Right . so right that i'm falling hopelessly in love with him ! i came to realize that i can relate to his writing , even after reading only two books by him . i think he writes what we human are afraid to show , afraid of that thing that people might see if they looked deeply into our soul . our true self.
And writing about that makes him a Genius .
Finally , my favorite quote in the whole book , this literally made me go crazy ! it was so beautiful that i reread it multiple times . it got me . it surely did :
...This is why we almost greeted one another at times , specially when we were both in a happy frame of mind.The other day when we met after an interval of two whole days , we were actually on the point of raising our hats but , fortunately , we pulled ourselves up in time ,dropped our hands and passed each other by with unspoken sympathy in our hearts.
If you didn't like this book , you probably didn't get it .
Fyodor's genius story is not just about two people meet and instantly one of them fall in love with the other . no .
It's about how fragile human soul is . how desperate we are for love , even when we can't admit it , or don't want to admit it . It's not about a simple boring man , who wonders around at night and meets a random girl . it's about a lost spirit who can't cope with people easily ,because they cannot see the world as he sees it . he doesn't see himself as unsocial , because he can connect to things in a way people don't get. he notices the houses on his street . he knows the people's faces . but he can't commit to the social conventions of saying hi and chatting , talking about everyday's none sense , for him , it doesn't work like that .
I like reading about these kinds of characters because it reminds me of my own character (or personality ) ; i totally get being socially awkward , or feeling like you don't belong to the same world that the people around you are living in, maybe that's another reason that made me fall in love with this story .
There's something in Fyodor's style that's just Right . so right that i'm falling hopelessly in love with him ! i came to realize that i can relate to his writing , even after reading only two books by him . i think he writes what we human are afraid to show , afraid of that thing that people might see if they looked deeply into our soul . our true self.
And writing about that makes him a Genius .
Finally , my favorite quote in the whole book , this literally made me go crazy ! it was so beautiful that i reread it multiple times . it got me . it surely did :
...This is why we almost greeted one another at times , specially when we were both in a happy frame of mind.The other day when we met after an interval of two whole days , we were actually on the point of raising our hats but , fortunately , we pulled ourselves up in time ,dropped our hands and passed each other by with unspoken sympathy in our hearts.
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Some books are like windows. You look through them and see another world. White Nights is a mirror. You look into it—and see yourself.
This novella caught me off guard. I hadn’t felt a book this deeply in a long time. It’s a quiet story, told with such aching honesty that you don’t even realize it’s lodged itself under your skin until it’s over and you’re sitting in its silence, feeling your own life reflected back at you.
Set over the course of four nights and a morning, White Nights follows a nameless narrator—a self-proclaimed dreamer—as he wanders the lonely streets of St. Petersburg. One night, he meets Nastenka, a girl with her own bruised heart and tangled story. They begin to talk. And those conversations—earnest, hesitant, trembling with unspoken longing—become the core of the novella.
But this is not a love story. It only pretends to be one.
It’s a story about loneliness, about the hunger for connection, about the line between reality and imagination. It’s about what it means to feel invisible in a world that moves on without you.
We never learn the narrator’s name. That’s intentional. He is you, me, anyone who has ever lived more vividly in their mind than in the world around them. His loneliness isn’t just a plot point—it’s the atmosphere. He’s not living so much as drifting, clinging to books, buildings, passing strangers. And when Nastenka enters his life, it’s as though a flicker of light has entered his long shadowed room.
But then there’s this strange undercurrent: Was Nastenka ever real?
Her name appears 138 times in this short text. That’s not accidental—it borders on obsessive. She feels less like a character and more like a manifestation of yearning itself. Maybe she was a dream. Maybe he invented her. Because what else does a lonely man do, night after night, but build a world from the scraps of his desires?
Yes, parts of the text may feel slow, especially the digressions, the romantic idealism, the narrator’s almost childlike voice. But that’s the point. This is a letter from someone who has no one to write to. His thoughts meander because he has nowhere else to place them.
And still—there’s beauty in that slowness.
There’s tenderness in his delusion.
Even in knowing how it will end, you read on, hoping for him, hurting for him.
The film Saawariya is a cinematic adaptation of the book drenched in blue and yearning. But while the film romanticizes the melancholy, Dostoyevsky confronts it. The narrator doesn’t get the girl. He doesn't get closure. What he gets, instead, is four nights of feeling seen. And for someone who’s lived invisible, that night becomes a lifetime.
The narrator’s lack of a name isn't laziness—it's symbolism. He has no identity beyond his emotions. This symbolises depersonalization and isolation.
Nastenka listens to him, and that alone becomes a kind of salvation. Even a temporary closeness feels eternal to someone starved of touch. This shows the fleeting connection in the book vividly.
Delusion vs. Reality: There's an intentional blur between what's real and what's imagined. That ambiguity is what makes the book linger.
The theme of hope and hurt is shown by the fact that the morning always comes. And with it, loss. But maybe even a brief hope is better than none.
White Nights isn’t about unrequited love. It’s about unanswered longing.
It’s about the parts of ourselves we bury in silence, and how, sometimes, a single conversation can resurface everything we’ve tried to forget.
It’s about what it means to be alive but unseen.
And it’s haunting because—if we’re honest—many of us are the dreamer, too.
What makes White Nights unforgettable is its gentleness. Dostoyevsky doesn’t scream the pain—he whispers it, line by line, until you feel it blooming in your own chest. The story never begs for sympathy, yet somehow leaves you aching. It captures that quiet, devastating truth: sometimes the deepest relationships are the ones that never truly happen—only imagined, longed for, mourned before they even begin. And in that way, White Nights becomes not just a story about love lost, but about the very human need to believe—even for a moment—that we are not alone. Here's something I wrote on the book:
i met her
in the space
between silence and sunrise—and lost her
to the light.
she was real
just long enough
to remind me
i was not.
This novella caught me off guard. I hadn’t felt a book this deeply in a long time. It’s a quiet story, told with such aching honesty that you don’t even realize it’s lodged itself under your skin until it’s over and you’re sitting in its silence, feeling your own life reflected back at you.
Set over the course of four nights and a morning, White Nights follows a nameless narrator—a self-proclaimed dreamer—as he wanders the lonely streets of St. Petersburg. One night, he meets Nastenka, a girl with her own bruised heart and tangled story. They begin to talk. And those conversations—earnest, hesitant, trembling with unspoken longing—become the core of the novella.
But this is not a love story. It only pretends to be one.
It’s a story about loneliness, about the hunger for connection, about the line between reality and imagination. It’s about what it means to feel invisible in a world that moves on without you.
We never learn the narrator’s name. That’s intentional. He is you, me, anyone who has ever lived more vividly in their mind than in the world around them. His loneliness isn’t just a plot point—it’s the atmosphere. He’s not living so much as drifting, clinging to books, buildings, passing strangers. And when Nastenka enters his life, it’s as though a flicker of light has entered his long shadowed room.
But then there’s this strange undercurrent: Was Nastenka ever real?
Her name appears 138 times in this short text. That’s not accidental—it borders on obsessive. She feels less like a character and more like a manifestation of yearning itself. Maybe she was a dream. Maybe he invented her. Because what else does a lonely man do, night after night, but build a world from the scraps of his desires?
Yes, parts of the text may feel slow, especially the digressions, the romantic idealism, the narrator’s almost childlike voice. But that’s the point. This is a letter from someone who has no one to write to. His thoughts meander because he has nowhere else to place them.
And still—there’s beauty in that slowness.
There’s tenderness in his delusion.
Even in knowing how it will end, you read on, hoping for him, hurting for him.
The film Saawariya is a cinematic adaptation of the book drenched in blue and yearning. But while the film romanticizes the melancholy, Dostoyevsky confronts it. The narrator doesn’t get the girl. He doesn't get closure. What he gets, instead, is four nights of feeling seen. And for someone who’s lived invisible, that night becomes a lifetime.
The narrator’s lack of a name isn't laziness—it's symbolism. He has no identity beyond his emotions. This symbolises depersonalization and isolation.
Nastenka listens to him, and that alone becomes a kind of salvation. Even a temporary closeness feels eternal to someone starved of touch. This shows the fleeting connection in the book vividly.
Delusion vs. Reality: There's an intentional blur between what's real and what's imagined. That ambiguity is what makes the book linger.
The theme of hope and hurt is shown by the fact that the morning always comes. And with it, loss. But maybe even a brief hope is better than none.
White Nights isn’t about unrequited love. It’s about unanswered longing.
It’s about the parts of ourselves we bury in silence, and how, sometimes, a single conversation can resurface everything we’ve tried to forget.
It’s about what it means to be alive but unseen.
And it’s haunting because—if we’re honest—many of us are the dreamer, too.
What makes White Nights unforgettable is its gentleness. Dostoyevsky doesn’t scream the pain—he whispers it, line by line, until you feel it blooming in your own chest. The story never begs for sympathy, yet somehow leaves you aching. It captures that quiet, devastating truth: sometimes the deepest relationships are the ones that never truly happen—only imagined, longed for, mourned before they even begin. And in that way, White Nights becomes not just a story about love lost, but about the very human need to believe—even for a moment—that we are not alone. Here's something I wrote on the book:
i met her
in the space
between silence and sunrise—and lost her
to the light.
she was real
just long enough
to remind me
i was not.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes