by Jenny Lee
A national indie bestseller! Meet Anna K: every happy teenage girl is the same, while every unhappy teenage girl is miserable in her own special way...
At seventeen, Anna K is 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 she 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 trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly's little 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 be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is...until the night she meets Alexia "Count" Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn't, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.
Dazzlingly opulent and emotionally riveting, Anna K: A Love Story is a brilliant reimagining of Leo Tolstoy's timeless love story, Anna Karenina—but above all, it is a novel about the dizzying, glorious, heart-stopping experience of first love and first heartbreak.
A national indie bestseller! Meet Anna K: every happy teenage girl is the same, while every unhappy teenage girl is miserable in her own special way...
At seventeen, Anna K is 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 she 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 trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly's little 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 be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is...until the night she meets Alexia "Count" Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn't, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.
Dazzlingly opulent and emotionally riveting, Anna K: A Love Story is a brilliant reimagining of Leo Tolstoy's timeless love story, Anna Karenina—but above all, it is a novel about the dizzying, glorious, heart-stopping experience of first love and first heartbreak.
Reviews-
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January 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. -
January 15, 2020
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)COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Teen Vogue
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." - GoodMorningAmerica.com "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."
