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A review by alexandra296
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Interesting and well written but not particularly moving.
Characterisation is decent - we get a good glimpse into our narrator Vladmir's thoughts and he seems like a plausible person. I wouldn’t say he’s easy to like but I do tend to find it easy to sympathise with young or very emotional narrators, so I can excuse his slightly one-track thoughts. We don't really get multisided views of our characters because the scope of the novella is pretty short. So there's no real character development. Interestingly no-one gets their comeuppance or learns a lesson, which I feel is unusual (but not necessarily bad).
Fairly short in plot (its a short book) and the premise isn’t particularly creative but its a nice and fast read. Well paced and I think the structure worked well. Very romantic type writing. This story is a little darker than the title might suggest and I enjoyed the almost sinister aspect of Zinaida's manipulations or foreboding tone of Looshin.
Writing is obviously fine, first person limited, very much focused on out protagonist Vladmir's emotions.
Characterisation is decent - we get a good glimpse into our narrator Vladmir's thoughts and he seems like a plausible person. I wouldn’t say he’s easy to like but I do tend to find it easy to sympathise with young or very emotional narrators, so I can excuse his slightly one-track thoughts. We don't really get multisided views of our characters because the scope of the novella is pretty short. So there's no real character development. Interestingly no-one gets their comeuppance or learns a lesson, which I feel is unusual (but not necessarily bad).
Fairly short in plot (its a short book) and the premise isn’t particularly creative but its a nice and fast read. Well paced and I think the structure worked well. Very romantic type writing. This story is a little darker than the title might suggest and I enjoyed the almost sinister aspect of Zinaida's manipulations or foreboding tone of Looshin.
Writing is obviously fine, first person limited, very much focused on out protagonist Vladmir's emotions.