As this is really the first true novel I've read this year + the last non-star wars book I'm going to be reading for a while, I think I owe it to myself to give a real review:

Personally, I like the style of prose well enough, but in places it's a little overwritten and pretentious in a way that's a little clunky, like the author isn't 100% convinced of her own metaphors. Raisa/Rosie doesn't come across fully thought-out, and instead is an attempt at a flawed audience proxy character. The thrust of why Raisa returns to Russia in, uh, literally 1991 and is the original driving mystery of the book is both a) confused (this is probably on purpose, to be tied into the confused story of her mother and grandmother's past + to demonstrate her mother's confused memories, but not necessarily successful since I'm confused, and b) not resolved at all. That's a choice, I guess, but to reveal it so blase at 60% and then just move on. Raisa really is the only MC who doesn't feel like a person, literally not a single other character feels as flat as her.

Ultimately and in a genuinely rewarding way, it's a love story between Tonya and Valentin that takes place over the entire course of the soviet union, and it's both pro-democracy + hopeful and it also loves Russia and was literally published in the year 2023. I only skimmed the author's note and I know that Loesch must have felt compelled to give a little more context than she might have otherwise (say, had this same book been published at the beginning of 2021), but there is an optimism in this book that I think is vital and also does give this book vitality.