Stars: 5 Use this as comparative literature to examine shifting values and stable values through time, cultures, nations, families, economic classes.
From the Publisher:
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 proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna's brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a 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.
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.
My Thoughts:
Anna K is a modern take on Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Rather than the cheating wife trope and the warning about swift change between traditional and progressive Russian lifestyles, though, this modern take is more like a Gossip Girls story played out in Manhattan and Greenwich. Ms. Lee uses very similar names for the characters, except these are teenagers and young adults and everyone is wealthy (except for Dustin).
Although the story starts with older brother and black sheep Steven, Korean-American Anna K is the protagonist. She is steady, lives away from home, has been in a long relationship with the OG of Greenwich and is the family mediator and star. On a train (another homage to Anna Karenina), she befriends a woman who is meeting her son at Grand Central, Alexia "Count" Vronsky. Steven also knows Count so they are talking at the station in the same way that Anna K and Count's mother are talking in the train. This is the start of both the intense love affair and the intense tragedy to come.
There is a follow up book, but I am all for good romantic tragedy (like These Violent Delights and Anatomy), so I think I am good with just reading this one book. I feel like the protagonist has the rest of her life to figure out how she finds herself again. The end.
Product Information:
Author: Jenny Lee
Publisher: Flatiron Books (March 23, 2021)
Paperback: 400 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1250236449
Grade level: 10-12
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