Anna K (Anna K, 1)

It was more entertaining than I thought it would be. Lots of drama. May be good for young adults

I honestly am not sure how I feel about this book. It took me forever to read. There was something about the writing that didn’t suck me in like other books do. It’s in third person but jumps from being in the present to past stories and at times feels like it’s in first person but it’s not. Just made me feel removed from the story sometimes. It took me awhile to connect with the characters. There are things about all of them that aren’t likable, which is incredibly normal of course. It just made me feel unsure of who to root for. The book is filled with a lot of sadness but also some good lessons learned. After all, they are just teenagers navigating some big life changes. Clearly I was still invested enough to want to see how it would end. I see there’s another book after this one… I may be curious enough to read it despite my meh feeling on this one.

I loved this book! Lee's prose is so breezy and her characters jump off the page. Their chaos, their growth, their turmoil, their quests for love suck you in and take you on a fantastic ride!

Spoiler alertI liked this ending better than Tolstoy's. Yeah, romance and character building. Lots of drug use, cussing, and a bit of sex.

I was captivated from the beginning. I've never read the original but am motivated to give it a go after this.

Honestly it was fine in the beginning. I skimmed the last 100 or so pages. Didn’t care for anyone except for Dustin and Kimmie, and even then not really. Everyone else was terrible.

This book follows the lives of a bunch of wealthy high school kids over the course of a spring semester. That’s the easiest way to succinctly summarize what it is about. The reality is the story is far more complicated. While the book is called Anna K, it’s not solely about that one young woman. It’s also about her brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly. It’s about Steven’s tutor and eventual best friend, Dustin, the object of Dustin’s affection, Kimmie, and it’s about Alexia. It’s about their wealth and affluence. It’s about their choices and what feels like a sad lack of consequences, save for the worst consequence. I was completely impressed with this story from the very beginning. Lee’s writing brought out the pettiness and silliness most adults feel emanates from teenagers on a daily basis. It’s witty and full of conversation that feels like it’s real. That impressed me. So often I read books with commentary and conversations that would never actually be heard in real life and it’s annoying. Lee’s characters here are as complex as teenagers are, showing both the shallow and the deep of each of the kids. Unfortunately, because of their wealth, there was a lot of shallow. I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of what life is like for the ultra-rich, but if that’s what it’s like, I’m glad I’m not one of them. The sheer amount of drug use, sex, and don’t-give-a-shit that happened was mind boggling. The relationships amongst the characters was also written well, and the story was intriguing and multi-faceted from start to finish. It is a great story. Here’s my problem. I was all about giving this a raving 5-star review…until I saw that it was billed as a young adult. Nope. Not a young adult. This is in no way a book we should suggest to a young adult…not at all. There are some serious explicit sex scenes involving underage characters. There is a LOT of drug use, alcohol use, drug abuse, absolute insubordination of parents and other adults. These are decidedly not qualities we wish for in kids…at all. And it didn’t feel like there was any negativity surrounding the poor choices these kids were making, which made this not something I would want a young adult to read. However, I will recommend this to anybody who is past the angsty phase of their life…it’s a really good book.

Anna Karenina + Gossip Girl = Anna KAnna K by Jenny Lee is the first book I got for Book of the Month, back in February. I picked Anna K because when I subscribed to BOTM, I told myself I would utilize the subscription to read some stuff outside of my comfort zone. I hadn’t read YA since I was in high school and I’m also not someone who reads much romance. I figured Anna K was about as far out of my comfort zone as I could get out of the five titles.When I first began reading this novel, I almost DNF’d. Less than 100 pages in, I thought each Lolly, Steven, Anna, Vronsky, and Kimmie were absolutely outrageous, each in their own right. To me, they all felt superficial, unrealistic, and frivolous doesn’t even touch each character’s outlandish extravagance. The amount of brand name dropping had me ready to close the book alone. I didn’t DNF though and I gave myself 50 more pages before deciding whether or not I would finish.I fell in love. Near the end of Part 1, everything fell in place for me and the storyline really started to shine. I love that each main character has a strong plot line, while keeping your focus on the love affair of Anna K and “Count” Vronsky. No one’s story outshone anyone else’s, and they were each a pleasure to fall in love with in their own right. Each chapter was short but not choppy and I appreciate the level of skill that went into the style of writing in this novel.My favorite part of Anna K though had to be the shifting character perspectives, which I learned is how Leo Tolstoy wrote the original Anna Karenina. I loved that the reader gets to shift from each character’s mind throughout the chapter--you always seem to be in just the right person’s mind. I’ve never read a book that shifted perspective like this before, and it gives me mad respect both for Tolstoy’s original writing style and the flawless writing adaptation by Ms. Lee. As someone who writes, a large part of your craft is your personal writing style and to see Ms. Lee being able to write a book not in her personal writing style and do it so well was quite impressive.I feel like in the span of the 370 pages or so, I’ve seen every character evolve and blossom into people who value their human relationships a little bit more than their designer labels. Characters that I started off thinking were shallow (all of them) experienced their personal metamorphosis’, each brought on by various significant events. Anna K is by no means a story of Vronsky and Anna. It’s a story of Vronksy and Anna and Lolly and Kimmie and Steven and Dustin. It’s a story of six teens transforming under the pressures of grief and moral dilemmas. Kudos to developing such an in depth, transformative, young adult story Ms. Lee.P.S. I definitely bought Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy about midway through this novel.

Overly long and detailed descriptions plus some highly unrealistic plot lines meant this was a plough through rather than an enjoyable read. I was engaged enough to want to know what happened though. Possibly aimed at a teen market?

This modern day version of Tolstoy’s classic features a very diverse lineup and it is really interesting to contrast the characters to Tolstoy’s original lineup. At the heart of the story is the doomed love affair between Anna K. and Alexia Vronsky.This modern day retelling features a diverse cast of characters and multiple point of views (very much a character-driven story) and at the heart of it is the doomed love affair between Anna K. and Alexia Vronsky, but other characters Steven/Stiwa and Lolly/ Dolly get a bigger part than in the original as well.The story definitely lives up to the Crazy Rich Asians meets Gossip Girl pitch, immersing us in the lives of the elite, upper echelon of Manhattan. I did not appreciate the constant name dropping as far as brands go and felt the setting was overdone as far as the setting in time goes with references to the president, the Hamilton musical and Coachella etc. This story does not aim for being timeless, it is going to feel dated in just a couple of years.It was a lot heavier than I expected it to be, touching on big topics like class privilege, sexism, racial disparity, internalized racism and double standards. I also enjoyed the insight on Korean culture — traditional values vs modern. My favorite aspect of the book was the character development in not just Anna but also Kimmie, Dustin, Steven, Lolly etc. .An entertaining and fresh take on a timeless classic.

This book was everywhere, I couldn't escape it. It felt as though everyone was recommending this read, hailing it as a Tolstoy with a Gossip Girl twist. This modern-day retelling of the classic Anna Karenina falls flat and short. The writing style does not "flow" very well, and reads as sloppy and disjointed. The characters are vapid, underdeveloped, and very dramatic, even for teenagers.Overall, the story is poorly written, underwhelming, and boring. I would not recommend it. If you're looking for the teenage, 1% NYC scene, you're better off just re-reading Gossip Girl.

This book is honestly plain trashy shallow teen drama. It’s not gonna win any literary awards but it’s fun to pass time with, the writing isn’t worth 5 stars but it had me swooning, being frustrated and in agony over the actions of the characters. They’re a wild bunch. The 5 star rating is solely because it elicited a lot of emotion from me.

anna K book is retelling of anna karenina but with teens and high society of new York. The story is were well built up. And characters to are developed through out the story..