Two little girls—Alyona and Sophia—go missing at the start of Julia Phillips’ wonderful debut novel, This is a novel about women; men in the book are often absent or portrayed as less than ideal.
As a young girl, Lilia was known to be wild and promiscuous. Based on many favorable reviews, I was expecting a memorable reading experience, when in fact it has failed to move me and I could not connect with any of the characters. After cataloging it for my library, I left it sitting on my desk for a couple of hours just to admire the cover when my eyes needed a break from the computer. The reason I added this book to my TBR list is because I love the cover.
Both research and personal experience went into this book: I studied Russian for a long time and lived fThat is super, super kind to say – thank you. I'm not sure of the reason but I was startled that the indigenous people, the Evens, are treated with disdain by Caucasian Russians. Natasha liked to picture her in Europe. But threaded between them all is the ongoing case of two missing sisters, and we see how these characters’ lives are impacted by or resonate with the girls’ disappearance. The landscape and its diversity regarding the population are the main themes of the novel.
Phillips basically writes SEX SLAVES in caps. Kamchatka is a land of extremes from tundra to volcanoes to verdant forests and the descriptions of the peninsula are jaw dropping. UGH!
For years she longs for her sister's return, searching for her everywhere she goes.
The ending of “Disappearing Earth” ignites an immediate desire to reread the chapters leading up to it: incidents and characters that seemed trivial acquire new meanings. It is a 1250km-long blade serrated by volcanic mountains, honed razor-sharp by unrelenting cold, empty tundras, bears, wolves, and a history of violent encounters between Kamchatka's indigenous people and mainland white Russians eager to plunder its vast natural resources. For many of these women, escape is simply not possible.Another girl, Lilia, is also missing, but has been missing for three years. After all, these popular...One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. The trap of family. There's still so much I don't understand, yet I feel like I just lived an emotionally exhausting week among the struggling yet strong Russian women of this novel. It was more like reading several short stories tied together by the kidnapping. I’ve never read a novel with this structure before; the chapters read like beautiful short stories, each with their own climaxes, each with their own casts of characters.
By waiting to focus on Marina, we get to know her as the trauma of losing her children has settled into her, the grief taking over the person she once was: “Everything that once propelled her was now gone.
Valentina, however, determined to be a part of the case, forms an alliance with the key investigator Kolya Ryakhovsky. Trying to figure out what to read next? It is our intent and purpose to foster and encourage in-depth discussion about all things related to books, authors, genres, or publishing in a safe, supportive environment. Disappearing Earth begins at the end of the summer on Kamchatka Peninsula. The community attributes her disappearance to her own foolishness. Filled will interesting characters, cultural tidbits (the author has apparently spent lots of time there on Fulbright grants and the like), and the writing is quite good. Phillips takes us deep into Revmira’s psyche, showing us the way that trauma renders numbness, that living with grief is like living in slow motion: “This date took him and pulled her down after, grief determined as gravity. The writing style was just OK for me, I was not blown away. More than likely this is the result of yet another knowledge gap. Six degrees of separation, indeed. He's had all three girls locked in his shack the whole time. I was also blown away by the ending, which will maybe go down as one of my favorite endings of all time.
Overall it was an interesting book but I wasn’t really Blown away by it.