Haley Tanner

I loved this debut novel about two children, born of Russian immigrants and living in modern day America. Vaclav and Lena are childhood friends, both Russian, but with extremely different home lives. As children they bond over Vaclav's dream to be a magician. Unfortunately, there is much more going on with Lena than meets the eye, and one day she essentially vanishes from Vaclav's life.

This book seems influenced by so many others to me - - [b:Water for Elephants|43641|Water for Elephants|Sara Gruen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388183358s/43641.jpg|3441236], [b:The Book Thief|19063|The Book Thief|Markus Zusak|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390053681s/19063.jpg|878368], and teensy bit of [b:Life of Pi|4214|Life of Pi|Yann Martel|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320562005s/4214.jpg|1392700]. But the writing style and voice is uniquely Tanner's. You feel that these people are not native English speakers throughout the entirety of the book, yet it still flows beautifully.

I probably would have "favorited" Vaclav and Lena if it wasn't for a scant few chapters, told from Lena's point of view, that I found overdone and slow. But the rest of the book was a delightful gem that at times almost brought me to tears (hard to do).

I'm very anxious for someone else to read it because it definitely has a bit of a hook for book clubs, and I'm curious to discuss it with someone else.

It is worth noting that this book reads a bit like a YA novel . . .but I don't think that is truly intentional. I think it stems more from the fact that the voice is that of an immigrant so the English is necessarily simple.

Also, if there is a better drawn character of a mother than Raisa - - I don't know of her. I fell in absolute love with her as a character, and truly felt that this book was as much a love story about her and her son as it was about the title characters.

Highly recommend.… (meer)

There are satisfying things about this book, and deeply unsatisfying things.

Vaclav, Lena, and Rasia are lovely characters. The nature of their care for each other is very sweet. There are some insightful descriptions of feelings as well.

However.

It wore a little thin, the way the text was written to emulate the speaking allegedly of ESL folk. This is a thing that was twee and not always suitable, especially as it lingered a little bit when the kids grew up.

Setting was a bit flat. I had a hard time pegging the exact time period until Rasia reflected on how her family came to America. I'm still not sure I know exactly -- just about everything could have been easily transplanted to a number of decades. The hardest technological lines I noticed were phones (but landline or cellular??) and the subway; fashion -- ripped blue jeans on a girl. But this could be the aughts, the 90s, 80s, 70s, 60s... Of course, the majority of the book takes place in Vaclav's home, it seems...

Characters-as-Russian-immigrants seemed a little stereotypical, but I don't have the personal experiences to really judge on this criteria. Would have liked to know more (anything) about Emily, with her apparently perfect single parenting and fancy house.

The end kind of fizzles out. Also, I'm entirely disgruntled about The Aunt, who is retconned from stereotypical neglectful stripper-caretaker to stereotypical martyred stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold struggling caretaker, which I have a hard time accepting. You can protect Lena from your own sexual slavery while feeding her and loving her. Except junkies aren't great parents, and she was definitely a junkie... But again, spare me this syrupy sweet "I'm reformed/reforming so I can be good for her, at which time I will make contact."

Vaclav himself seemed way too sheltered and naive, too. Okay, Rasia definitely sheltered him a little, out of love. And if you never think to challenge an old assumption, you can easily carry a child's errant belief into (near-)adulthood. But really, with all his treasured memories of Lena, this highly intelligent NYC-raised kid never looked back and thought, "oh god, I think she was abused and neglected!"? He still seems to think his stupid mom wasn't justified in calling the cops on Lena's living situation. It's hard to know, sometimes, whether I'm supposed to be buying in to all the characters, or out-thinking their unreliable narration.

Which gets back to the syrupy-sweetness that over-softens the hard edges this book hints at and confirms, and then the book is just over. I would've liked to see another time jump to actual-adults Vaclav and Lena, continuing their story. Lena has a terrible first time at sex or almost-sex with the boy she loves, the only boy, the cosmic soulmate boy, due to and capped off by her sudden memory of being raped as a child. This seems like it would matter in their relationship! Which makes me wonder, who is this book for -- adult or teen audience? The first half is immature-child POV, then 17 yo teens (and again, followed by nothing). Adult-Lena and Adult-Vaclav would have potentially had more nuance and so forth, but then again...

Lastly, didn't care for the way Vaclav devises a syrupy-sweet fairy tale lie about Lena's parents' stories. I don't care that everyone knew it was a lie -- that actually makes it worse! In stories, you see moments like that where hopeless characters offer obvious lies for even an illusion of comfort and it's bittersweet and poignant, and obvious the only comfort is actually derived from the presence of a person willing to try scrapping together some sort of appealing lie to get them past that moment. This is not that kind of moment. I'm not sure if it was trying to be, but it really didn't work for me.

And then it was over, just like that.
… (meer)