A national indie bestseller! Meet Anna K: every happy teenage girl is the same, while every unhappy teenage girl is miserable in her own special way… At seventeen, Anna K is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father … Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.
As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until the night she meets Alexia “Count” Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.
Dazzlingly opulent and emotionally riveting, Anna K: A Love Story is a brilliant reimagining of Leo Tolstoy’s timeless love story, Anna Karenina–but above all, it is a novel about the dizzying, glorious, heart-stopping experience of first love and first heartbreak.
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It’s been ages since I read Anna Karenina, so I don’t really remember much except the tragic ending it’s so well known for. Still, I was intrigued by the idea of a modern YA retelling, so picked this one up as soon as I heard about it. There were so many things about this book that I loved. I found the writing unique for a YA novel, reminiscent of the original novel without being obnoxious about it, and I loved Anna’s character – she felt so real and flawed, and I couldn’t get enough of her tragic romance told anew. I could have used less of the endless party and drug scenes (this book was almost 400 pages and probably didn’t need to be), but overall, I enjoyed this retelling that felt like Gossip Girl got her hands on the Russian classic.
Overall, probably kind of dense for readers coming into this with no expectations from the original. Enough reflection of the original yet with its own surprises to interest those familiar with the original. And for both, moments where the old Russian style and internet era style will clash in a really strange way.
Recommended: yes!
For an adaptation from an uncommon source for the genre, for a rich-and-famous-teen story, for a lot of interpersonal intrigue and drama sprinkled with plenty of sex, drugs, and partying.
Thoughts:
I’ve seen a lot of reviewers saying they are unfamiliar with the original text this is based on, Tolstoy’s dense Russian classic Anna Karenina. I have read the original, so I can give some insight into the amount of similarity and would say it’s about 60% similar. Part of this is just because the original is SO dense and lengthy that aspects of it had to be removed to prevent this retelling from being nearly a thousand pages as well. The general plot is the same, and the relationships are all still there, so the essence of it remains.
Vague ending spoilers, but primarily spoilers for those who’ve read the original.(view spoiler)
So, now to address the experience for those who are coming into this as its own standalone story with no preconceived ideas of what will happen. Be aware that this is a lot more serious and formal in tone than most YA novels, which is due to Lee’s success in imitating the reserved Russian mindset and style of the original. While I plowed through this, other friends said it took them weeks to get through because of how slow and dense it felt at times. The overall effect is an unprecedented blend of modern and classic tones.
The primary hurdle to this blend is when they clash in a quite jarring way. For example, the sentence “Perhaps [she] was rueful over her lost opportunity with [him], who wasn’t as babe-a-licious as [the other guy] but was vastly superior in intellect and character.” (Edited to keep it vague). The term “babealicious” set up against “vastly superior in intellect and character” is extremely weird, posing the character thinking it simultaneously as a serious posh old lady and a millennial pop-culture fanatic. It gets really awkward at times, and the tone is pretty inconsistent. Alternatively (and as above, sometimes simultaneously) aggressively young and weirdly old in their mindset, these teenagers often don’t read as teenagers and makes it hard to classify this as a young adult genre.
The characters all live quite lavishly, which is where all the comparisons to Gossip Girl are coming from. I imagine the HBO series will be pretty similar in style. Even with that, they retain their complexity, allowing you to see the redeeming and condemning sides of each person. Dustin (Levin) is the one who will be most relatable for most readers, in terms of lifestyle. That said, each character has similar fears and challenges as anyone reading it might.
When I saw the title Anna K I instantly knew this was a retelling of Anna Karenina. I have read Anna Karenina only once in my life, in college for my Russian Lit class. Why I took that class, I do not know. I think it was the only exciting literature class that sparked an interest in me. I also knew the teacher and knew if I had to, could skate by. He always graded on a curve. When I read Anna Karenina, I was not as in love with it as I would have liked. To be honest, I think it bored me. Then the film came out starring Keira Knightley and I saw what I was missing in the novel. However, I did not pick the novel back up to re-read it.
However, I can say, as far as retellings go, Anna K blew me away.
A Compelling Contemporary Retelling
There were so many parts of this novel that reminded me of the Gossip Girl novels. This wave of nostalgia that hit me gave me goosebumps in a good way. Connecting me to those memories only made me love the novel even more.
However, what stands out about the novel is the characters. It is so easy to visualize these characters as they embark on their adolescent journey into love. That is probably the reason why I love this retelling more than the original because it is so easy to believe young kids are screwing up and figuring out their love lives rather than adults. There is such a preconception that lingers in our minds that makes us think that adults have it all figured out even when we know they do not. Even here, the adults do not have everything figured out, and that is the charm of the novel.
Anna thought she had everything figured out, her whole future laid out before her, a dotting boyfriend, the pride of Greenwich, but she forgot to live. That was brilliant, and part of the compelling nature of the novel.
By going back and forth between these characters, the novel intertwines their lives together, giving the novel a good pace and strong character dynamics. These may be high society kids, but the reader can connect to them because they are as lost as every other teenager out there. These kids are dealing with the hardships of school, the control of social media, and the addiction and longing that is love. Everyone, no matter the age, can connect with these characters because they are real, they come to life in such a brilliant way, developing and growing as they experience life.
Final Thoughts
Anna K was a brilliant contemporary retelling. It has such a range of characters but never loses the reader. It is cohesive in its fluidity, moving from one character to another is such a smooth motion. Jenny Lee did such a good job making sure the novel flowed, ensuring that the pacing of the novel remained steady so that she did not lose her point of view.
A true love story, Anna K lingers and connects to the reader long after they finish.
A fresh and wickedly smart take on a classic story. Anna is even more scandalously fun now, in the age of stilettos and social media, than she was in 19th century Russia. I couldn’t put this one down.
Jenny Lee’s Anna K: A Love Story is gut wrenchingly captivating. A reimagining of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, this is not a flowery, happy tale… but it IS didactic and tragic and beautiful.
Anna K is the prototype for perfection. Between her beauty, her impeccable grades, and her picture-perfect boyfriend, Anna K’s life seems wonderful. It is when she meets the dashing Alexia Vronsky, however, that she realizes that maybe her life isn’t her own. And that the connection between Vronsky and herself is too powerful to be denied.
In some ways, this novel follows its source material quite religiously, and in others, there are wonderful departures. Lee deftly explores the world of the rich elite in a manner that examines privilege in various forms, as well as addresses the ways in which race, gender, and class intersect and affect each of the novel’s protagonists. Without providing spoilers, I will say that the way that Lee chose to reinterpret Anna Karenina’s ending was gutting, but also empowering. Would I have liked to have had all of the narrative threads tied together in a pretty little bow? Sure. That being said, this novel (mostly) earns its ending. I was more dissatisfied with the execution of the denouement rather than the fact that it happened. But the epilogue was pretty perfect and kind of binds the whole story together.
Lee’s content is decidedly more adult than a lot of YA novels out there, so be aware of that if you are thinking of having younger readers read this. Some CW include: excessive drug use, parental infidelity, revenge porn, drug overdose, suicidal ideation, and teenage sex. I feel like all of this content was meant to highlight this exclusive and opulent world of privilege that these children inhabit, so I understand why everything was included, but this novel isn’t going to be the right one for everyone. It’ll most likely have a polarizing effect one way or the other.
If you’re a fan of Anna Karenina, and/or if you’re into tragic romances, add Anna K to your TBR.
Let me start by saying I have never read Anna Karenina. I own it, but for now I am not in the mood to read it. When I started Anna K., I went into it completely blind, and I didn’t notice what the author borrowed from the original plot and what she didn’t, which was great because I am not usually drawn to retellings unless I really liked the book that is being re-interpreted. In this case, I was allured by the fact that the blurb said it had Gossip Girl vibes. I never blogged about GG over here, but who knows me is aware that was my favorite TV show because I like teen drama. Well, Anna K was a mix of that and other stories.
The guys in Anna K are very diverse and we see how they face love and betrayal and all that jazz. It was nice that she wasn’t the only character because I think the strength of this story is the fact that there are various characters and they had different opinions on things as they faced what happened to them. And a lot happened in this book, it was super long for a non-paranormal. Not that it was a bad thing, but there is really too much that happens that it’s impossible to remember everything, and not everything that happens may be suited for a young adult public. I don’t know why this is targeted as YA when there should be some content warnings.
Overall, I liked this story and I liked that it wasn’t just a story about rich people who do illicit things and have annoying parents. The author tried to address some issues and it was a great thing that the characters weren’t all white Caucasian, because our world needs more stories with unheard voices. The only thing I found hard was get into the book. I had to read a couple of chapters because I couldn’t adapt to the third person POV, but the story gets better as you move on.
I think this book will be a hit among people half my age, but I think people who aren’t teens anymore can read it too. It’s so different from what I usually read that I can’t predict whether it will be loved or not.
You’ll have to read it if you want to know if you’ll like it or not.