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A review by emtees
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
This was a strange and exhausting book to read, but that isn’t a bad thing. The journey that the main character, Sasha, goes on is also strange and exhausting and the authors carry you along with her even as she becomes something the reader can barely understand.
There is a whole genre of “magical school” books and whether they are children’s books, YA or adult they usually follow a certain pattern: someone who is dissatisfied with the regular world, who is isolated or different or just feels like there should be more to life, is whisked away to a world of magic and power and even if it is frightening and dark at times, it is still better than what they had before. Vita Nostra… is not that type of book, possibly because of what the blurb calls its “Russian sensibility.” Sasha Samohkina may be a bit lonely and awkward, but she isn’t unhappy with her ordinary life when, with no warning, she finds herself stalked by a strange man with bizarre demands. When she fails to meet his odd requirements, terrible things happen, but when she forces herself to comply, Sasha finds she’s “earned” her way into a mysterious school in the remote city of Torpa. There is no question that Sasha, rather than being whisked away to fulfill all her dreams, is blackmailed into attending the Institute, as are all the other students, who struggle through mind-bending courses that break their spirits and even distort their bodies, all in the name of protecting the people they love from retaliation by their mysterious, powerful “mentors.” The book follows Sasha through the first three years of her “education” in a system that is not quite science, not fully magic, driven by mathematical and philosophical concepts. The remarkable thing is the way the authors slowly depict the way her training changes Sasha’s mind and personality, to the point that the reader feels they are undergoing the experience with her. Very little actually happens in this book - until the very end there is no outside plot, no bigger threats, not even a clear point to the studying Sasha and her fellow students are doing. All the plot tension comes from the school itself - will Sasha pass her tests? Will her friends? Can ordinary human things like friendship and romance survive in a climate designed to turn the students into something Other? Will Sasha be able to keep the secret of what is happening to her from her family, and if she can’t, what will happen to them? Sasha’s journey from an ordinary, if bright and disciplined, teenager into the thing she has become by the time she reaches her final exam takes up the entire book and it is compelling even if it is also at times horrifying.
The only slight flaw in this book for me came at the end. The ending to the book is, deliberately I think, somewhat ambiguous. After all the build up over the course of three years, Sasha takes her final exam and… something happens. I don’t mind that the story didn’t perfectly clarify what happened or what it meant, but the writing got very confusing in the last five or so pages, possibly due to a translation issueI suspect “password” wasn’t a perfect translation for what Sasha turned out to be and more importantly, huge ideas and significant concepts were introduced so late in the story that there wasn’t really any time to deal with them. I don’t believe there was an intention to write a sequel to this book but the way it ended felt like that’s what was meant and that was a bit disappointing.
There is a whole genre of “magical school” books and whether they are children’s books, YA or adult they usually follow a certain pattern: someone who is dissatisfied with the regular world, who is isolated or different or just feels like there should be more to life, is whisked away to a world of magic and power and even if it is frightening and dark at times, it is still better than what they had before. Vita Nostra… is not that type of book, possibly because of what the blurb calls its “Russian sensibility.” Sasha Samohkina may be a bit lonely and awkward, but she isn’t unhappy with her ordinary life when, with no warning, she finds herself stalked by a strange man with bizarre demands. When she fails to meet his odd requirements, terrible things happen, but when she forces herself to comply, Sasha finds she’s “earned” her way into a mysterious school in the remote city of Torpa. There is no question that Sasha, rather than being whisked away to fulfill all her dreams, is blackmailed into attending the Institute, as are all the other students, who struggle through mind-bending courses that break their spirits and even distort their bodies, all in the name of protecting the people they love from retaliation by their mysterious, powerful “mentors.” The book follows Sasha through the first three years of her “education” in a system that is not quite science, not fully magic, driven by mathematical and philosophical concepts. The remarkable thing is the way the authors slowly depict the way her training changes Sasha’s mind and personality, to the point that the reader feels they are undergoing the experience with her. Very little actually happens in this book - until the very end there is no outside plot, no bigger threats, not even a clear point to the studying Sasha and her fellow students are doing. All the plot tension comes from the school itself - will Sasha pass her tests? Will her friends? Can ordinary human things like friendship and romance survive in a climate designed to turn the students into something Other? Will Sasha be able to keep the secret of what is happening to her from her family, and if she can’t, what will happen to them? Sasha’s journey from an ordinary, if bright and disciplined, teenager into the thing she has become by the time she reaches her final exam takes up the entire book and it is compelling even if it is also at times horrifying.
The only slight flaw in this book for me came at the end. The ending to the book is, deliberately I think, somewhat ambiguous. After all the build up over the course of three years, Sasha takes her final exam and… something happens. I don’t mind that the story didn’t perfectly clarify what happened or what it meant, but the writing got very confusing in the last five or so pages, possibly due to a translation issue