Author: Kristen Loesch
Publication Information: Berkley. 2023. 416 pages.
ISBN: 0593547985 / 978-0593547984
Rating: ★★
Book Source: I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.
Opening Sentence: "In some faraway kingdom, in some long ago land, there lived a young girl who looked just like her porcelain doll."
Favorite Quote: "But there are always a hundred lives not lived. There will always be a hundred paths I did not choose. And this is the one I do."
A history spanning about 70-80 years. Three generations but two main characters. Russian history and folklore. A love story. A search for the past. Like many other multiple timeline books, this one is about a woman with a doll and a key searching for her past - a past her mother always kept at bay.
Rosie is an immigrant to England, having settled there with her mother. Her heritage is of Russia, but Rosie knows little of that past. She is student in England and in a loving relationship, engaged to be married. An opportunity presents itself for Rosie to return to Russia and perhaps solve the mystery of her past. She takes the risk and ventures into the unknown. The steps and the risks that she takes are a stretch of the imagination and do not quite ring true. However, as a reader, I put that aside, ready to dive into her quest and see where it leads.
The collection of the porcelain dolls is eerie and adding to the mystery of the book. It also makes me wish for an illustration. Interestingly, the title ultimately is not about a doll at all. From the book description and the beginning of the book in fairy tales, I expect more of the fairy tales and Russian folklore in the book. It is either not there or I don't know enough about Russian folklore to recognize it. The story ends up much about the political history and about Rosie's quest for her past.
The story moves back and forth between different times in Rosie's life and to a time decades earlier and a woman named Tonya. Porcelain dolls and how they come to be provide a link and a clue. Embedded into these timelines are a lot of characters and a lot of Russian history.
Therein lies my struggle with the book. I find myself getting lost in the characters and the history. With a large number of characters, it is also hard to determine which ones may be important in Rosie's future and which ones I, as a reader should focus on.Particularly, the timeline of the past needs more context. I find myself having to look up the history to determine the political factions and the goals of the individual characters. Having read all the way through, I am still unsure I understand the book, the history in this context or the ending.
The concept and the history are interesting. Unfortunately, it takes too much work to settle into both, and I end up not the reader for this book.
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