Castle of Concrete by Katia Raina @tlcbooktours #bookreview #castleofconcrete

happy Monday evening all!

excited to share with you today my review for this delightful story! I love historical fiction because it always teaches me something that I did not already know, and this one taught me a lot! Thanks much to Trish for my invitation to this tour.

My Thoughts

Katia Raina brought the Soviet Union in the 1990s to life with her vivid writing. This book really made me realize how unaware I was of world events when I was 20. I did know that communism and the Soviet Union were crumbling, I did know there was a Gorbachev, but there was also much I did not know. This book did a marvelous job of enlightening me on important historical events by interweaving them into this story about this delightful girl. Sonia has spent most of her life living in Siberia with her grandmother, but now she has returned to Moscow to live with her mother. Not only does she now have to fit into a new school, but she is also torn between her Russian and her Jewish roots. Sonia really had a magnanimous personality, being a teenager is tough in the best of circumstances, I really admired her fortitude. I also felt so deeply for her, the poor girl was falling for a boy who was further tearing her in different directions. And her mother, I like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I truly don’t think she always had a handle on the big picture. Beautifully told, highly engaging, A lovely story that taught me a thing or two about historical world events.

About Castle of Concrete

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Young Europe Books (June 11, 2019)

Set in the final year of Soviet Russia’s collapse, this stunning debut novel tells the story of Sonya, a timid Jewish girl reuniting with her once-dissident mother and falling in love with a mysterious boy who may be an anti-Semite. All the while, Sonya’s mama is falling in love also?with shiny America, a land where differences seem to be celebrated. The place sounds amazing, but so far away. Will Sonya ever find her way there?

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

About Katia Raina

When she was a child, Katia Raina played at construction sites and believed in magic mirrors. She emigrated from Russia at the age of almost sixteen. A former journalist and currently a middle school English teacher in Washington, D.C., she has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her family just outside of D.C., and still believes in magic.

Find out more about Katia at her website, and connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.