Reviews

The Red Passport by Katherine Shonk

khoerner7's review

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3.0

I enjoyed this book of short stories about post Communist Russia even though it was outside my comfort zone. The cool thing is that I went to college with the author and was unaware of her writing talents.

michaelnlibrarian's review

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2.0

Author's bio says nothing about any connection with Russia, yet there must be something given the subject of these stories. Also, at $4 bought on sale in Seattle, the price was right!

Well, much time having passed, I have finished this 200 page collection of short stories.

The fact that I stopped and started with this is probably the strongest indicator that I wasn't all that taken with this collection. The stories all are set in either post-Soviet Ukraine or Russia. The stories are fine individually but there is sameness to how most of them are told and what the underlying themes are that meant that reading them one after the other wasn't engaging.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is realizing that this Russia of the 1990s that she describes no longer exists.
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