Anna K
A Love Story
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A dazzling reimagining of Tolstoy's timeless love story, Anna Karenina, set in the glittering world of Manhattan's elite.
Meet Anna K: At seventeen, she's at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society, even if she prefers the company of her horses and dogs. She has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W., and has always made her Korean-American father proud, even if he can be a little controlling. Meanwhile, Anna's brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are weathering a sexting scandal; Lolly's sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven's best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.
As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until she meets notorious playboy Alexia "Count" Vronsky at Grand Central. Everything changes as an irresistible attraction pulls them together. Anna must decide how much of her life she's willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she questions if she has ever known herself at all.
Opulent, riveting, and brilliantly reimagined, Anna K: A Love Story is above all a novel about the dizzying, glorious, heart-stopping experience of first love and first heartbreak.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
