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kelly_inthe419 's review for:
The Last Russian Doll
by Kristen Loesch
The Russian Doll is the portrait of a devastating family history that spans the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the siege of Leningrad during WWII, Stalin’s purges, and into the 1990s. Its dual timelines focus on Rosie in the 1990s trying to understand her mother's murky past and her family's tragedies, while the second timeline focuses on doomed lovers Tonya and Valentin starting in the early 20th Century.
As a child in Russia, Rosie witnessed the brutal death of her beloved older sister and father. Soon after, she and her mother escape to England where she is raised as her mother falls deeper and deeper into the liquor bottle. Upon her mother's death, she discovers a note hidden in a porcelain doll and a mysterious key. At the same time, she's offered a unique internship working for a renowned Russian author and speaker in Russia. Rosie seizes the chance to look into her family's history and track down "that man" who ruined their lives.
I was intrigued by Rosie's story and how her past was so connected to the present. The slow reveal of the past kept me turning the pages until the very end. The end of the Tonya/Valentin story line was romantic if a bit unrealistic to me, and I found that I still had questions at the end that I'm not sure were explained completely.
Much of this story - especially in the historic timeline - is quite brutal and raw. The downfall of the Czar and the resulting turmoil and the years of Stalin's work camps were gut wrenching. Russian history is filled with events like these and it's a difficult story to digest. But for history lovers and fans of historical fiction, it's also a unique and fascinating glimpse into the past.
Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the advanced readers copy of this book.
As a child in Russia, Rosie witnessed the brutal death of her beloved older sister and father. Soon after, she and her mother escape to England where she is raised as her mother falls deeper and deeper into the liquor bottle. Upon her mother's death, she discovers a note hidden in a porcelain doll and a mysterious key. At the same time, she's offered a unique internship working for a renowned Russian author and speaker in Russia. Rosie seizes the chance to look into her family's history and track down "that man" who ruined their lives.
I was intrigued by Rosie's story and how her past was so connected to the present. The slow reveal of the past kept me turning the pages until the very end. The end of the Tonya/Valentin story line was romantic if a bit unrealistic to me, and I found that I still had questions at the end that I'm not sure were explained completely.
Much of this story - especially in the historic timeline - is quite brutal and raw. The downfall of the Czar and the resulting turmoil and the years of Stalin's work camps were gut wrenching. Russian history is filled with events like these and it's a difficult story to digest. But for history lovers and fans of historical fiction, it's also a unique and fascinating glimpse into the past.
Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the advanced readers copy of this book.