Publishers Weekly
01/20/2020
TV writer Lee modernizes Anna Karenina with a heavy serving of Gossip Girl in her ambitious YA debut. Seventeen-year-old Anna K, who is half-Korean and half-white, sits at the center of her elite Connecticut private high school social scene. Though she loves her Harvard boyfriend, an encounter with the handsome Count Alexia Vronsky in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal leads to a flirtation that becomes something more. Dutiful Anna struggles with who she wants to be amid social expectations, and Vronsky offers her a chance to act impulsively. Filled with a compelling supporting cast—including Anna’s clueless but charming older brother—this retelling focuses on a New York City filled with teen socialites who have unlimited access to money, designer goods, and drugs. The superficial narrative leans heavily on slang and designer name-dropping, failing to conjure the original’s heft, occasionally exoticizing Anna’s beauty, and at times losing sight of its own deeper themes, including class issues. Details about the wealthy behaving badly abound, however, offering plenty for readers looking to enjoy the Gossip Girl side of the story. Ages 14–up. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand, Union Literary. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Named a must-read book of 2020 by Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, Elle, HelloGiggles, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, Bustle, BookPage, and more!
National bestseller
NPR Best Book of the Year
Marie Claire Book Club selection and Best Book of the Year
Book of the Month Club selection
A SkimmReads Pick
“A timeless tale of how much we’re willing to sacrifice for love.” —Teen Vogue
“A modern take on Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Anna K is a Gossip Girl meets Big Little Lies tale of wealth, privilege, love, and loss with lots of designer labels.” —GoodMorningAmerica.com
“This is a soapy YA book that reads, well, like a Russian novel. Jenny Lee remixes and updates Anna Karenina, this time with a Korean American teenage socialite anchoring the story.Tolstoy fans and novices alike will find Anna K to be a satisfying read.” —NPR
“Something no one tells you about postcollege reading is the fact that you have to relearn how to read for fun—Anna K is the ideal book for the job. The novel scratches the same itch binge-watching comfort TV does and stands as a good reminder that an ‘important’ read can be a fun one.” —Vanity Fair (Best Book of the Year So Far)
“This innovative retelling illustrates the push and pull of first love.” —Time
“Lee’s version of Anna Karenina, tweaked and updated for today’s teens, makes for addictive reading.” —BookPage, starred review
“You'll be hard-pressed to find a YA that captures the Gossip Girl vibe as well as this debut, and you know B would approve of the fact that it takes its inspiration from classic literature!” —BuzzFeed
“A fresh and wickedly smart take on a classic story. Anna is even more scandalously fun now, in the age of stilettos and social media, than she was in 19th century Russia. I couldn’t put this one down!” —Katharine McGee, author of American Royals
Kirkus Reviews
2019-12-08
A slow-burn epic tale of love in modern-day Manhattan high society.
Anna K, a 17-year-old from a wealthy family, falls for the handsome Alexia "Count" Vronsky and strives to stay loyal to her Greenwich, Connecticut, OG boyfriend of three years. Her partying brother, Steven, rebels against their father's strict, traditional views while his friend Dustin excels in school but is new to affairs of the heart. Kimmie, Steven's girlfriend's sister, tries to be a regular teen after training as an Olympic ice dancing hopeful and also struggles with inexperience in love. These are just the major characters in a cast filled with convoluted relationships. Taking place over the course of a school year, the characters move from party to nightclub, heart-to-heart to Coachella, with their ever changing relationships as the central focus. The distant writing style and pervasive dropping of brand names slow the narrative and weaken its analyses of love, racism, social standing and wealth, sexism, addiction, and mental health. Despite getting off to a slow start, this is a gripping story with sympathetic characters struggling through the mire of modern relationships. The ending, while slightly predictable, comes to a satisfying conclusion. Anna and Steven are Korean and white; Dustin is black, adopted into a white Jewish family; other main characters are white. References to Anna's "exotic" beauty are not contextualized.
Stick with this modernization of Anna Karenina; it pays out in the end. (cast of characters, author's note) (Fiction. 15-18)
