Did Not Finish, but Did Not Surrender

May 11, 2016     laurathebibliophile     Book review

Hey, all!

This is Laura, and I’m finally making a post! My life has been a little crazy, but it seems to be settling down, so hopefully this will start to happen more often (more often than never should be easy.)

don't look at me

Anyway.

You may be familiar with the Russian novel, Anna Karenina. It’s old, acclaimed, and pretty famous– not to mention that it’s been turned into more than one movie! I haven’t yet gotten around to watching them because I wanted to read the novel first.

Oh boy.

I don’t know what I expected, but Anna Karenina took me a little by surprise. I loved it! It’s amazing, honestly. The characters are relatable (who doesn’t know a Vronsky, right?), the storylines are fairly universal, and the drama and humor just pull you in.

this just gets better and better

That said, it is a RATHER long book, with a LOT of interwoven plot lines and characters who have five names and go by each of them in different situations. It’s a little hard to get through. I was determined, however, to read it through to the end. After all, I was working at Cedar Point, so when I was off, I had a lot of free time, which I mostly used for reading because I was older than my roommates, not into the underage bar scene, and to be honest, extremely shy and anxious in social situations.

I started reading this novel in the spring of 2014 on my phone’s kindle app. It’s been two years, and…

I’m still reading it. I made it about halfway through over the course of two years.

i am not fast

Usually, this would be a pretty obvious sign that I should throw in the towel and give up, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I feel as though I owe it to these characters to read their stories to the end. I MUST know what happens to Anna (even if I pretty much know, since as I said it is a famous novel). I MUST know whether Levin finds love. I MUST know whether Vronsky gets trampled by a horse, as I keep hoping will happen, though I’ll admit it’s probably pretty unlikely. I MUST know what Betsy’s going to do once the cat’s out of the bag.

I must.

I would like to say that I’m going to sit down this weekend and finish it, but that would just be a blatant lie. Firstly, I will be in Rochester this weekend for TBF with Erin. Secondly, it’s a hard book, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. Thirdly, it’s hard for me to read on a screen for long periods of time. I get pretty bad headaches, and ereaders seem to bring them on after too long, unfortunately.

Hopefully someday I’ll be back here posting my review of the whole book, but one can never tell the future.

Until that day, keep reading. Pick up a Russian novel– you might surprise yourself.

One response to “Did Not Finish, but Did Not Surrender

  1. I attempted this book years ago–I wanted to read it over the course of a summer but I just couldn’t get into it! I thought it was fascinating with the culture and the like but it’s so detailed and long!

    Maybe one day I’ll manage to get through it all but there are other classics out there that are shorter and more intriguing for me to finish.

    Good luck with it!

    Lauren @ SERIESous Book Reviews #Commenting365

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