Kissing Tolstoy

I'm so conflicted about this book. On one hand, I absolutely loved Luca and Anna's discussions about books, characters, their philosophies and values and so much more. They were intelligent and thoughtful and really impressed me. I can't judge the accuracy of the points made because I haven't read any Russian lit, but I understood the thoughts.

It was the characters I couldn't connect with. Anna has anxiety, but her overreaction for every small thing just grated on my nerves. Her first choice in any uncertain situation was to run away. She came off as very immature though she didn't like to be called that way. Luca comes across as a very intelligent, hard working professor and he actually is smart about handling his attraction towards his student by taking the appropriate steps. But we don't know much about him because we hardly get to read his POV.

I understand that they connected to each other on an intellectual level but I couldn't totally see their love for each other. Maybe I would have felt more if it was a longer book, but this was too short for me to understand the love. I could definitely get behind the idea that they were great friends.