This is my first book review post for 2021! Happy New Year everyone!

I was provided with a copy of the book by the author in exchange for an honest review. I am a little late in finishing up this book due to all the parallel work and books I was reading, but I have finished it now. so read on to know my thoughts.

About the Book:

“Your problem is you have a Russian soul,” Anna’s mother tells her. In 1980, Anna is a naïve UConn senior studying abroad in Moscow at the height of the Cold War—and a second-generation Russian Jew raised on a calamitous family history of abandonment, Czarist-era pogroms, and Soviet-style terror. As Anna dodges date rapists, KGB agents, and smooth-talking black marketeers while navigating an alien culture for the first time, she must come to terms with the aspects of the past that haunt her own life. With its intricate insight into the everyday rhythms of an almost forgotten way of life in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, Forget Russia is a disquieting multi-generational epic about coming of age, forgotten history, and the loss of innocence in all of its forms.

My Thoughts:

Forget Russia follows Anna as she spends some time studying abroad in Moscow, trying to piece together her roots and experience the Russia of her grandmother’s time. Even though her mother discourages her, this is something that she feels she has to do.

The story jumps back and forth between Anna’s experiences and her grandmother Sarah’s story, thus giving us a glimpse into the past and how they came to be in the US. The author also elaborates on the situation in Russia, the Cold War and the lives of the people. Even though I do not know much about Russian history, it was great to read this book and learn a little something about it. However, I cannot attest to the correctness of the events and so I will not comment upon them.

The author does a good job of narrating the characters experiences and thus taking the reader into a world thus far slightly unexplored! As a result, I enjoyed reading this book and getting to know the various people in it. They were well thought out and I am sure reflect some of what people really experienced.

I would recommend this book for those who would like to read about experiences and a book set in Russia.