**I received a free advance copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts, comments, and opinions are my own.**
About the Book:
Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she 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; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a bit controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is recalibrating 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 teenage life, Anna always seems to sail gracefully above it all. That is, until the night she meets Alexi “Count” Vronsky. A notorious playboy, Alexi is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t either. As Alexi and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to ask if she has ever known herself at all.
Dazzlingly opulent and emotionally riveting, Anna K 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.
Review:
I may stumble and struggle with my review as I loved this so much. I tend to become tongue-tied with books I like because I feel saying how marvelous, relatable, and all around enjoyable they are just doesn’t feel like enough.
Keep in mind this is an Anna Karenina retelling with a very modern twist. If that alone doesn’t make you want to read this, then I cannot help you. 😉 Lee did an outstanding job of taking a story that most readers want to read but usually don’t due to either length of story, harsh words, or struggles to understand what is happening. The characters felt fleshed out, developed, flawed, and real. The relationships within the story felt believable and that helped so much. Anna’s relationship with her brother had such a depth to it, it was a sight to behold.
There were some heavy topics covered within the pages of this book but they were done with grace. Lee did not include them for the sake of doing it. They were there for a reason and they were handled the way they were supposed to be.
Please, I urge you to pick this up if you have not already.
About the Author:
Jenny Lee is a television writer and producer who has worked on BET’s Boomerang, IFC’s Brockmire, Freeform’s Young & Hungry, and the Disney Channel’s number-one-rated kids’ show, Shake It Up. Jenny is the author of four humor essay collections and two middle grade novels. Anna K: A Love Story is her debut YA novel. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and 135-pound Newfoundland, Gemma (and yes, it’s a toss-up on who’s walking who every day). Instagram: @jennyleewrites
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