A review by sarasbooks
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

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

3.5

The novel Anna Karenina written by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1878 is very vast. It’s about life, death, politics, religion, duties, family, the pursuit of happiness and the meaning of life. Can women be independent? How’s does society view women? These are some of the aspects this novel gives an insight of. It gives us also an overview of life in Russia and its culture, giving this novel a richness of its own.
It was a challenging book to read, as it took me way longer to finish it than all of the books i have read so far. I was disappointed in the heroine, Anna. She isn’t admirable to me. However, i appreciated other characters such as Levin, Vronsky, Kitty and Dolly. All of them go through a change in their way of thinking and acting, and you can see them evolve. It teached me about the sometimes tragic consequences of our decisons. 
The bottom line of the novel is : 
“To live not for one’s needs but for God!” “.. now I say that I know the meaning of my life: it is to live for God, for the soul.” “.. my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.” - Levin
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