A review by misterintensity
The Revolution of Marina M. by Janet Fitch

3.0

Marina Makarova is the sixteen year old daughter of a Russian bourgeoisie official living in luxury on the eve of the Russian Revolution. The tumultuous events of the revolution is the beginning of a tumultuous period in Marina's life. During the three year span of 1917-1919, a lot of changes occurred in Russia which is reflected in the events of Marina's life in this historical novel about this daughter of the bourgeoisie. While the circumstances of Marina's life does change throughout the novel, in many ways she's the same, wide-eyed school girl that she was when the novel began. Your enjoyment of the novel will very well depend on whether you could tolerate Marina, who often comes across as very unlikable and bratty throughout. It gets to the point that even the other characters point out how mercurial she could be when she pops in and out of the other characters' lives, especially toward the end of this very long novel. The other characters are not much more likable than Marina which makes it hard to identify with any one of the many characters that come in and out of the narrative. Fitch's research into the Russian Revolution, especially how it effected everyday Russian citizens of all classes is impeccable but those expecting a straightforward novel of the effects of the Russian Revolution from the point of a view of a bourgeois individual who gets caught up in its effects will be disappointed since as you read on this book becomes a variation of the "Perils of Pauline" as Marina gets herself into ever more absurd situations. The description of the despair faced by Russian workers and peasants due to the broken promises of the revolution is the novel's strength. That could have been the basis of a compelling novel, instead what we get is an overly long "woman in peril" novel.