A review by juulisbad
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

5.0

Okay ladies and gents, this was amazing. It wasn't in anything what I usually read and since it's a classic of about a thousand pages and a really really small font, I was afraid of not ever going to finish this book. But those fears came to me before I even started reading it but after the first hundred pages it was pretty clear that I would fall in love with this book. It amazes me how Tolstoi was managing it to introduce all of these different character with those rather "complicated" names and it never once got confusing as to who is who or where the plot is heading right now. How often did it already happen to me that I came to a place in a book where my brain just went off and I couldn't follow the story anymore? Often enough but not a single time in THIS ONE. I can barely believe it myself. Anna Karenina is so much more than just Anna Karenina, it follows the lifes and thoughts of a bunch of russians elite and shows us that their lifes aren't that different from the ones we ourself are living today. I have the deepest respect for Tolstoi and how he could catch all that life and realism and put them into words. I liked how every single character was so real, they all had their unique character traits, made mistakes and made them better. I especially enjoyed the last 150 pages of this book

Spoiler

showing how Anna was slowly going "insane" from jealousy and started seeing things totally different from what the really were and her dead was really heart-wrenching even though I already knew she was going to die. It's interesting that I liked this book so much allthough I have already seen the movie and knew about the main things that would happen (of course it would never be possible to put every single awesome piece of literature that book holds in itself into a movie). Ljewin finding god was also one of the most beautiful things I have ever read, especially as an atheist it touched me and made me think about my beliefs

I remember how in the beginning I couldn't understand how Anna would choose Alexei Wronski over Alexei Alexandrowitch but I soon realized that this was not the point of the novel and deeply unimportant. I could probably write a whole new book as a review but I won't cause I have to study. This shall be enough!