A review by sarabearian
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

This is an amazing mixology of magical realism, language and metaphysics. A mysterious stranger coerces Sasha, a soon to be college student, into the Institute of Special Technologies. Upon arrival, she observes second year students walking in fits and starts, bumping into objects as if in a drunken stupor, and wearing gloves although winter is far away. Third year students look normal enough yet their gaze alone frightens her. The advisors, the mysterious stranger one of them, use subtle threats of harm to the student’s families should they fail.

Sasha along with the other students is torn between her curiosity and revulsion at what is asked of her. Sasha is homesick, away from home for the first time. Her mother is recently married and with the arrival of a new baby brother she wonders where she fits in this new family.
At the institute, Sasha befriends Kostya another first year student who has a secret that when discovered makes him an outcast. Of course, what would life be like without a roommate Lisa with whom Sasha has little in common and is her academic rival. Sasha navigates these new experiences, along with her classes: textbooks with strange characters that make no sense but alter her perception, a class on Applied Science that causes Sasha to sprout wings, and metaphysical discourses that somehow link them all together. As she progresses through her studies Sasha is shocked when her turbulent emotions manifest in unexpected and terrifying ways.

In the intervening mind-bending years, Sasha comes to embrace her studies perhaps too well; and even her professors are challenged to control Sasha’s potentially dangerous new abilities. In the final exam for placement, in the midst of professors and fellow students Sasha, achieves realization of who and what she really is in a single word. She sees the world as it truly exists; beautiful, exhilarating, and terrifying all at the same time.
A world that ultimately, she controls.
Are you curious yet?

I found Vita Nostra to be a highly compelling read that I could not put down. I needed to learn along with Sasha the secrets of The Institute of Special Technologies, her surreal metamorphosis, and the life altering conclusion.

I highly recommend Vita Nostra for fans of The Night Circus, The Magicians, Harry Potter, The Paper Magician and The Bear and the Nightingale.

Read it now! – Amy O.