Delightful, hilarious, surprising! Pitch perfect for fans of Gossip Girl—the Chuck Bass look-alike even has a signature scarf! Feels trashy and sexy but SO fun! Made me smile ear to ear while I was reading. Perfect spring read to pull you out of your reading slump!!

A lot of people have compared Anna K to Gossip Girl, and while I haven't read Gossip Girl I have read my fair share of stories about rich teens at private school or living in the city and all the drama and romance that entails. So, this isn't necessarily something that hasn't been done before.

Except, this story feels so much fresher then those that have come before, mostly due to the diverse cast and the way it handles real-world topics, like drug use, privilege, mental illness, racism, sex in our current culture, etc.

Anna K tells several different stories, just like the text it is based on (which I also haven't read, so my opinions on this are strictly on the book itself, not as an adaptation). The cast is sprawling, though I found it surprisingly easy to remember everyone (which I can never do), because everyone is so distinct and well-defined. The most prominent characters are Anna, her brother Steven, his girlfriend Lolly, her sister Kimmie, and Steven's tutor, Dustin, as well as Vronsky, the romantic interest, as well as an assortment of background friends and parents. The book starts off with Lolly discovering that her boyfriend has cheated on her, and her brother responds by texting his sister, Anna, to come and help him, and so kicks off the chain of events in this book.

There is a lot of rich people stuff but only side characters are really petty and nasty, which also makes this book refreshing. In fact, the characters that are catty just feel annoying and over the top. Everyone else is much more nuanced, especially a character who deals with depression and another character who has a brother who is an addict. The writing style of this is also unique, though I'm not sure I could say why. There is just something about it that allows you to get into all the character's heads, including side characters you might not have previously cared about. The details of how rich are these characters are just the right amount.
There a few different romances going on here, and while there wasn't necessarily any strong chemistry in any of them, I was invested enough in them to keep reading the story. Though, the ending was so over the top, especially when the rest of the book had been so mild in comparison, that I was kind of like....why?? Anyway, read if you want something that bring a little bit more to the table than the rich, gossip books of old.

Anna K is a teenage girl with seeming everything. She is the super wealthy and respected it-girl of Greenwich by way of NYC. She is the golden child of her family and the envy of high school girls everywhere. Through Anna we meet a cast of characters, including her brother Steven and his girlfriend Lolly, her boyfriend Alexander, “The Count” Alexia, and many more wealthy Upper Eastsiders. All of their stories intertwine in this modern-day, teenage version of Anna Karenina. As you would expect, drama ensues.

But as much praise I’ve been seeing for this one, It was kind of difficult to get through. It was good but not my favorite YA.

This was a really great modern retelling of Anna Karenina! I really liked how well it aligned with both the novel and modern teenage problems. It was very reminiscent of Gossip Girl. I found it to be a great way to intro the classic Anna Karenina to a modern teen audience. There were a couple of changes from the source material to this modernization, but I think all were for the better and made for a great book. I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend!

4.5/5
Ok, first of all, I have to admit that I have never read Anna Karenina and therefore have no idea what it's about. So despite this being an Anna Karenina retelling, it felt all like fresh new plot points and characters to me! With that being said ...
THE DRAMA. If you liked Gossip Girl, you will LOVE this book. I'm not a huge fan of all the drama, but the characters really got to me so I got through the drama just to know what would happen to these beloved people.
A quick brief of this book can be put in a few simple phrases: party shenanigans, love, loss,
The plot was INTENSE. Like I was gasping and flipping pages back and forth in shock kind of intense. Again, this may be because I haven't read the original, but STILL. I'm sure I'd be in just as emotional and in as much shock as the first read-through.

Anna K, a young adult retelling of Anna Karenina, revolves around the lives of uber rich teens in NYC. I really enjoyed how closely this book followed the plot lines of the original work, but with fun contemporary twists.

Some of the dialogue between the characters was over the top ridiculous - it hasn't been that long since I've been a teenager and I'm pretty sure people don't actually talk to each other like this (then again, I've never been the child of multi=millionaires so what do I know?). However, the ridiculousness of the dialogue and the parties was actually kind of fun and amusing. Lee paid homage well to the original characters while adding extra dimensions to the story, like Anna K's half-Korean heritage, which changed some dynamics and allowed for some great moments of depth and character insight.

The big downside to this retelling is the ending, which I won't spoil here except to say that changes are made from the original storyline. I didn't particularly want the exact ending of AK in this story, but I wasn't happy with how this ended. I didn't think that the ending was foreshadowed well and it just seemed to fit in weirdly with other subplots in the story. Overall, an interesting and entertaining retelling of the Russian masterpiece, albeit with some strange dialogue and conclusion choices. Not really sure who I'd recommend this story to, but it was pretty interesting regardless.

I suspect this is going to be a very polarizing book...

This modern YA retelling of Anna Karenina is what I would call The Goldfinch meets Gossip Girl, but with awareness of racism and privilege, not to mention a much more diverse cast of characters. It is smart, darkly tragic, but manages to end on a bittersweet note. This is a book that will make you feel things and leave you thinking, regardless of whether you love it or hate it. Set among super-elite teens of Manhattan, we enter a world filled with lavish lifestyles, over-the-top spending, private tutors, wildly opulent parties with expensive drugs, truly horrible parents, and quite a lot of sex. And if this is a love story, it is mostly a tragic one.

The eponymous Anna K. is a half-white, half-Korean teen with very wealthy parents, a high society boyfriend, a wild but much loved older brother, and two very large Newfoundland Dogs. This book has a large cast of characters and while Anna's story is central to the plot, there are several other significant stories as well, and I really fell in love with some of the side characters. The character development in this book is generally really good. I was especially impressed with how Stephen (Anna's brother) went from being someone I really disliked to one of my favorite characters by the end of the book as he grows and changes. The sibling relationship between him and Anna is also a really fantastic one. Meanwhile, Dustin is one of a couple of characters who lend some much needed balance to all the wealth and privilege. He is Black, Jewish and adopted, with middle-class parents, but has known Stephen for years and is now his tutor and friend. The book does quite a bit to address different types of racism and classism in really pointed and thoughtful ways.

Honestly, I really struggled with the first third of this book. It feels incredibly bleak and has a lot of difficult and even horrifying content in it as we are introduced to the characters, their families, and where they come from. That said, I really enjoyed the last 2/3 of the book (this is where you really start to feel the Gossip Girl vibes) and I appreciated that we get real payoff from the earlier content in impactful ways. If I hadn't been reading this with a friend, I might have DNF'ed it early on, but I am glad I decided to push through because for me, it was ultimately worth it. It is thematically rich and takes a nuanced approach to a number of issues. It also just becomes a lot more (by turns) fun and satisfying later on.

If you are familiar with the plot of Anna Karenina, it should come as no surprise that this book involves several instances of infidelity. While that is always a tricky issue for me in books, I thought the author used this to explore the gendered ways that cheating is typically treated in really interesting ways. The idea that it is somehow more wrong for a woman to use her sexuality this way than it is for a man is actively pulled apart and I appreciated the way that was handled. Similarly, drug use is handled in a nuanced way that manages to be realistic without feeling preachy. And there is a LOT of drug use in the book, so I think that is important. The narrative demonstrates why it can be so appealing to some teens: for fun at parties, for handling nerves, for focus, etc. But we also see how it can go horribly wrong, from poor decision-making to a very bad acid trip on the lighter end, but also including the absolute devastation of becoming a heroine addict who steals from family and overdoses. In all cases, it feels humanized rather than demonized, trusting the reader to draw their own conclusions.

We also see how parents deeply impact the choices that their children make as adolescents through neglect, abuse, and their own behavior both positive and negative. The trauma that some of these parents cause through their action or inaction is truly heart-wrenching. I will admit that being a parent myself, this aspect may have stood out to me more than it would to some other readers, but it is definitely worth noting.

Finally, lets talk about the sex, because there is a lot of it here. Given the explicit (especially for YA) nature of some of the scenes this may be controversial/recommended for older teens. What I appreciate about what it does though is that we get multiple examples of how to approach sex as a teen without putting a value judgement on it. One character wants to wait until she is in love and emotionally ready and when things don't quite go as planned, we get a complex portrayal of what the aftermath is like for her. We see another character lose her virginity in a more impulsive way where the consent is a little fuzzy and she ends up regretting it for specific reasons, but eventually confronts things. We also see passionate, consensual sex in the context of infidelity, queer characters hooking up (off-screen). It is sex-positive in that it prioritizes the value of female pleasure and choice.

However, I didn't love the non-inclusion of safe sex as a conversation, especially given how many characters and different kinds of characters are sleeping together. The only place I saw it was in a side character admitting that she dislikes condoms and has had two abortions. There is no other mention of chemical birth control methods, no depictions of condom use, no discussions between characters of concerns involving unplanned pregnancy or STD's, and in my opinion there really should be. In full disclosure, I read an advance copy of the book and it is possible that the finished copy will rectify this, but I do find it concerning, especially in a book targeting teens that has such a heavy emphasis on sex.

In terms of writing style, I think this book is going to be hit and miss for people. The author has a background in screen-writing and it definitely shows, especially in the earlier portion of the book. That isn't necessarily bad, but it's a quirk that some readers might not get along with. Overall, I was surprised at how much the book resonated with me by the end, despite a difficult beginning. I think a lot of readers are going to eat this up, but others will not be fans. See below for a partial list of content warnings because there are a lot. I received an advance copy of this book for review via Netgalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

CW include teen sex, alcohol use and drug use, drug overdose, death, loss of a loved one, infidelity, catching a parent engaging in infidelity, discussions of young children being exposed to sex, unclear consent, graphic depictions of depression, suicidal ideation.

For fans of Crazy Rich Asians, teenage love stories, and great literature, Anna K is a reader’s delight. It sucks you in from the beginning, not just for Anna’s story, but for Dustin, Kimmie, Lolly, and Steven’s stories as well. The characters are believable, despite being part of the 1%, and the reader finds themselves rooting for the characters even when they’re making poor choices. The book touches on inequality and racism without being preachy, and deals with the issues of drug addiction with sensitivity. While it’s an adaptation of Anna Karenina, it’s certainly not off-putting to a reader who’s never picked up the great novel, and I don’t think the story would be spoiled for one who has read Tolstoy’s classic. I enjoyed this book and I recommend it highly!

Anna K by Jenny Lee
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Pub date: 3/3/2020
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Anna K is a teenage girl with seeming everything. She is the super wealthy and respected it-girl of Greenwich by way of NYC. She is the golden child of her family and the envy of high school girls everywhere. Through Anna we meet a cast of characters, including her brother Steven and his girlfriend Lolly, her boyfriend Alexander, “The Count” Alexia, and many more wealthy Upper Eastsiders. All of their stories intertwine in this modern-day, teenage version of Anna Karenina. As you would expect, drama ensues.
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As soon as I saw that @graceatwood was reading this, I knew I had to move it up my TBR list. This book is A LOT, in many good ways but also in many “damn I really am almost 30, huh?” ways. Equal parts Gossip Girl (although, WAY more drug use than I remember from that series) and Crazy Rich Asians, this one was an easy, borderline ridiculous read. If you’re looking for the fun escapism of rich kids behaving badly, then this is the pick for you. At almost 450 pages, I thought it could have been a tad shorter, but it does pack a lot of plot within its pages. I really enjoyed reading this one; however, you need to suspend your belief a bit. There were many, many cringe moments that I just could not relate to. Teenagers honestly scare me and I am SO grateful I didn’t come of age in this current social media world! Thank you NetGalley and Flatiron for my advanced reader’s copy! Anna K will be published on March 3rd, 2020.

Anna Karenina is one of my favorite classics, I make sure to re-read it once every few years. Anna K is a modern re-telling with rich high school students in NYC. I’m pretty sure if this version had been taught in school I would have grasped the story much more easily! That’ll never happen cause this version is full of sex and drugs! I’m enjoying it as a light, easy read and could totally see a “10 Things I Hate about You” “Crazy Rich Asians” mash-up movie treatment made out of this version. The story is great and tugs your emotions into a million directions just like the original.

I loved this Euphoria meets Gossip Girl retelling at Anna Karenina. If I weren't a middle school librarian, I'd purchase it for sure, but the content and themes are a bit mature for the age group I work with. This was a fun romp through ridiculous upper-class New York and all the drama that goes with it, all along making for some powerful female figures and teens who could have gone down destructive paths making good choices. I might just read it again!

I loved this book. It has been a while since I read the original Anna Karenina, but I do believe I enjoyed this one better. Though I was skeptical at first about the story being told as a YA novel, it was amazingly well done. The novel is set in New York amongst the elite and well to do high society of private school. The characters are beautifully done, and the love story of Vronsky and Anna K is just as poignant. I remember not liking Anna as much in the original, but found her a much more sympathetic and likable character in the retelling.

I love that authors are retelling some classic stories in contemporary voices. As a high school teacher, I would love for my students to read these epic tales, but sometimes reading it in the prose of the 1700s and 1800s can prove too much for high school sophomores. Novels like this bring the classics to a new generation, and I applaud the author on a spectacularly well done retelling.

I really, really liked this book. I’ve only ever read the first half of the OG Anna Karenina, but everyone knows how it ends so I was excited to see what Lee would do with it and I was not disappointed! I think the writing was stronger in the beginning, where it read like a 19th century Russian novel!, but by the time the style shifts to a more “general” YA voice, you’re too invested in the characters to even really notice.

This is definitely a character-heavy book and I loved every single one of them (except Eleanor obvi because she’s annoying), but the plot is also really strong and just so much fun. Some of it seems rather unrealistic, but I have no idea what really goes on in the upper echelons of New York’s elite teenagers. There are also SO. MANY. pop culture references, but tbh that doesn’t bother me.

The feelings and actions of one of the characters towards the end sort of contradicted themselves but who am I to judge a teenager in love?

Thanks to Flatiron Books for for giving me a free arc through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was pretty good for what it was meant to do which is a new-age "Gossip Girl" but I felt like the story took too long to progress. I felt like it could've been more fast-paced and because of this, I lost interest very quickly. I didn't ever feel the absolute need to pick up my phone and just get back into the story. I think if I was in high school I would've loved this book.