A review by franmari
The Kreutzer Sonata, by Leo Tolstoy

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
 
Are straight people okay?: The novella

I have no idea how to rate this.

Just because the character's action made me enraged and I don't agree with ideas discussed in this novella doesn't make this BAD. I think it's a great book to sTArT a dIsCussIoN.

But I have to find out what surrounded this books release because I heard something about Tolstoy's poor wife.

Divorce isn't a bad thing. Some people need to break it off and grow as people because they are toxic for each other. STOP DEMONIZING DIVORCE RATES.

This book really was about an insecure, self-absorbed man who unfortunately had physical and social advantage over his wife and it ended up with her dead. It hit way too close to home because it way too much resembled my father. YIKES. Men like this need to go to therapy and work their issues out BEFORE someone winds up dead. I pity them, loathe them and fear them at the same time.

She deserved much better. She should've left him, cut him off. My heart breaks for all the women in situations when it isn't an option. The fact that she was just a device to help his moral growth.. I-

But that's on me for reading 1800s Russian books and then being surprised by it not having nuanced feminist discussions.

This man really just said that sex is so bad that we should stop having it and if it means that the human race will cease to exist then so be it. Wow, who hurt you?

But it did make me feel all kinds of emotion, I even cried. I am so happy to have finished it already.

I will give Tolstoy this. The first movement of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata slaps and is the best one out of the three. Hundred percent 
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