A review by lisanussd
Oksana, Behave! by Maria Kuznetsova

4.0

I saw this book in the library on the display for *new* books and liked the cover. It’s a small book so the 250 pages flew by. It’s a first novel for Kuznetsova, and it spans Oksana’s life from age seven to late twenties. I had a hard time reading the part when Oksana attends Duke. She seemed lost and dangerous, almost unloveable. In fact, I had to put the book down, Oksana’s character reminded me of the main character in Goldfinch. However, as the book progressed, Oksana seemed to mature a little and then the book skips along. Each chapter seems to skip about 2 years so this creates a satisfying pace to the novel. The observations that Kuznetsova makes throughout the novel are sharp and penetrating. Observing a woman that she meets who has cancer, ...”she looks 40 though she’s over sixty with the Bay Area glow of a person whose blood is mostly kombucha and wheatgrass and whose muscles are sinewy from decades of downward dog. “(P. 214)