A review by neolx
The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry

informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

This was not just written to write something or to win some award, like a lot of lit fic published today. This was written from a place of pain and trauma. While it is fiction, it reads like a memoir and feels informed by lived experiences. Though slow, it was very deliberate and intentional. You could feel the author’s struggle with love and hate for her home and her effort to come to terms with her difficult past through writing. This was no small feat, having been beautifully and thoughtfully written in a language that is not her mother tongue. She also very clearly and nakedly set the reader in the time and place of 1980’s Russia, both in a physical and sensory way, but also in the emotional headspace of the characters living through the complicated and often devastating political situation in Russia. While this felt a bit overwritten at times, overall I loved the writing and found so many unique and startling gems of wisdom tucked in this story.