Vita Nostra

Have you ever wanted a coming of age magic school book but it is intensely severe and depressing and set in Russia? Have you ever been meaning to read it for years but you finally get around to it in January 2025 and the state of the world and your regular depression and your seasonal depression and of course the book itself all join forces and reading it is a really dark and strange experience? Have you ever kind of liked it anyway? Has this ever happened to you?

When Vita Nostra begins, Sasha is enjoying a beach vacation with her mom, until she notices that wherever she goes, the same man is watching and following her. After trying to elude him, they talk and he gives her a bizarre assignment. Task complete and vacation over, Sasha's life slowly starts feeling normal again. Until the man shows up again, with a new task. And then later, with an acceptance letter to a school at which he is an advisor. The book spans her first three years studying at the school, most of which is spent trying to nail down what she is even studying, let alone why.

Vita Nostra is beautifully descriptive book. The setting of Torpa is a strong point, how your adult life away from your parents and childhood can feel both comforting and desolate. Just how little and scared 18-year-olds truly are. The process of learning is also central, framed as this agonizing tug of war intertwined with the wellbeing of your loved ones, walking a tightrope between the discipline of hard work and the discipline it takes to pace yourself.

At many points Sasha reads like an unreliable narrator, because her experience of life is jagged and sporadic, a lot of shifting and morphing. She is being turned inside out, sure only of what she will lose if she fails. The book explores love as a deep fear for the wellbeing of others. Although also, maybe it's because I'm a bleeding heart, maybe it's because I know how much fear and trauma can inhibit action, but I'm just...not convinced that everyone needed to be that mean. I am just not convinced we needed to be out here killing grandmas because of failed pop quizzes. Does not seem like the superlative or primary way to motivate people, especially perpetually.

I do think (at least in the English translation), the plot got muddy. There were elements that felt repetitive and gratuitous. All this tension would build up, everything would seem so immense, and then the book would just continue. A lot of huge moments were undercut by this pattern, and it made the book feel a lot longer, but less impactful. Also, why were all these guys so wrapped up in their students' sex lives? To that I say, GROSS. Gross and disgusting and unnecessary and stop that. They seemed plenty scary and severe and omniscient without that element. Don't even get me started on Farit pimping out Lily for no reason? And that just being an open secret no one does anything about? That part was hard for me to read around.

No idea what to compare this to, but the cover is incredible, and it is a rare instance where I do not feel let down by my initial intrigue by a predictable or silly reveal. The Dyachenkos followed through, and then some. I need to read a happy book immediately or I will die.