This is a multigenerational novel with the now/then way of story-telling. I love to see the parallels of the women in the family, each going through their own lives and trying to do their best for their families. I really enjoyed it.

2.5 stars / Thanks to Netgalley for access to this book!

There were parts of this book that were quite great. The grandmother's, Larissa, story, could have easily been the whole book for me. The story of a Ukrainian family in exile during the Stalinist regime was told with such dry humor and wit. However, this story was interspersed throughout that of Natasha, an aspiring actress in the United States and recent mother, who is dealing with a stagnant relationship and career, as well as postpartum depression. For the purposes of the book, I could not care about how both stories were connected, and I could not care much for Natasha's story relative to her grandmothers', who is narrating her story over Skype.

It was interesting watching this family, written about in the Now / Then format. It took me some getting used to, and there were characters that I cared about a lot more than others. Studying the list of characters, helped. I appreciated the author's wry humor, although it could be dark and abrupt. I could have done with one less sex-crazed cat, as a running gag through all those generations. Laughed out loud a number of times, though, a plus especially in the hard times of war and persecution in which they lived. The atmosphere felt deeply Russian. . . .

Still, the overriding message is in the title, and that affected me as I read through the many family situations, all through to the very end. You don't know what you think you know, ever. Hang in, love lasts, even what you think isn't love, may actually be. A persistent message. The people you live with, love with, you are convinced you know them. . . they will always carry away with them their last pearl of mystery, unrevealed, no matter how many have been shared.

A worthy read.

A sincere thanks to Maria Kuznetsova, Random House Publishing Group, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

#SomethingUnbelievable #NetGalley

I was excited to read this because I really enjoyed Oksana, Behave!

This was less overly funny than her first novel, but still had absurd humor. It was a serious book about hardship, family, love, and postpartum depression.

TW for animal abuse/death. The book goes back and forth between Natasha, the granddaughter who lives in the US and just had a baby, and Larissa, the grandmother who lives in the Ukraine and tells the story of her childhood during WWII.

I really liked it and the characters are strong, stubborn, and wilful.

It has been a while since I’ve picked a book up and basically didn’t put it down again until I was done. I loved every SINGLE character, but it was truly hard to resist Larissa and her deadpan humor and stark but loving observations and criticisms of people and life in general.

Brief summary:
New Yorker actress Natasha is a new mother with a lot of ambivalence about a lot of things. Over Skype, she asks her grandmother (Larissa, in Kiev) to tell her the story of her family during WWII and the events that led to Larissa’s grandmother’s death.

Both stories were fascinating. The parallels of Larissa/Misha/Bogdor and Natasha/Yuri/Stas made this book fun to read, which is probably not the best adjective to use given a lot of the subject matter that this book tackles- but that’s why I’m a reader and not a writer.

I most strongly connected with Natasha’s struggle as a new mother. I also felt a lot of ambivalence about my newborn (I remember calling him an “amorphous blob with no personality- which is pretty close to “human puddle”) that has since gone away and been replaced with an insane amount of love and amazement. Here’s a section from the book that I resonated with big time:

“She’s come such a long way from the human puddle I gave birth to, though she’s got a long, long way to go. And yet, there are so many things my daughter can do that I wish I could—sleeping through the wild street sounds, facing the brutal, cold world with absolute wonder, smiling for no reason at all—but I have unlearned all of her survival skills, and one day, she will unlearn them, too, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Honorable mention to the cover design- I loved it and thought it captured the book perfectly.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the review copy!

New mother Natasha has lately been extremely tired. Taking care of a newborn can do that to you. Sometimes she looks at her life and wonders if her actress-life is in the past or if she can regain some of that glory. None of her auditions are panning out to good offers. To help get her mind off things, she asks her grandmother, Larissa, to share some of her war-time experiences. Larissa, in turn, isn't really looking forward to revisiting that dark period, but she'll do anything for Natasha, who she adores. While Natasha's parents settled in the US a long time ago, Larissa never left her home. Their occasional long-distance video calls are how they keep in touch. As Larissa begins her story of loss and survival during her family's escape from the Nazis, Natasha tries to figure out how to revive her stagnant career.

I typically enjoy historical fiction that flips between the past and the present and this was no exception. Larissa makes for a very interesting character. She was always blunt, even as a kid and didn't care too much for making an impression. That was her beautiful sister, Polina - who drew eyes even when too young to be courting men. Larissa's story starts with her grandmother - a woman who married for money and comfort, and put her sons in an orphanage - an action that forever split the family. Years later, fearing the Nazis, Larissa's entire family moves to a far-away factory town, where they stay with the Orlov family.

Life in their new town starts out relatively okay, but deteriorates rapidly. While survival remains forefront in everyone's mind, Larissa and Polina also enjoy romantic interest in the Orlov brothers, Misha and Bogdan. Tragedy isn't too far though, and they are constantly tested as they lose loved ones from within their group.

Something Unbelievable pulled me in right from the beginning. Natasha's struggles are universal in some ways - which new mother has not worried about her career or her ability to bring home the dough while also caring for an infant? And yet, in some ways, they are very specific to her - almost every audition opportunity she gets are of Russian prostitutes. She doesn't fault that though but does wish for better. In addition, it isn't easy slipping back into a job that relies on her figure, something that is changed by a pregnancy. On the other hand, Larissa was sometimes frustrating, but still understandable. She didn't get along with a lot of people. She didn't not either, but she made no attempts to be too friendly. She may have been married to someone who loved her, but that certainly didn't stop the countless affairs that followed.

War time, is however, not a good time to judge people by, especially if they were the oppressed. And this is nicely represented in the book - how tragedy transformed many people - nice one day, uncaring the next. While I enjoyed all the insight into Larissa's past, I can't say I cared as much for Natasha's present. Natasha's story was too rushed and thus not as intriguing as her grandmother's. She did seem to make the same questionable choices as her grandmother in some cases. Somehow, I couldn't understand or appreciate either women's tendency to cheat (or attempt to) on their partners, and the surrounding characters' general acceptance of those betrayals (or at least a lack of strong disapproval).

Something Unbelievable was a very fast and addicting read, even if a tad bit unbelievable in parts. I'm certainly eager to explore more of this author's works.

Something Unbelievable was nothing short of unbelievably well done. From the very start, two main protagonists grabbed me with their utterly realistic dialogue. It was wrought with wit and honesty, a striking combination.

Two women, grandmother (Larissa) and granddaughter (Natasha) are several decades apart with a world between them geographically that share only memories of Natasha’s summer visits to the seaside outside Kiev to visit her grandmother. Through Skype they stay in touch and right from the start I knew I’d love Larissa after she reveals her thoughts that her great-granddaughter looks like a rat-faced girl.

The writing in this book was smart and well-paced. After Natasha asks Larissa to tell her the story of her years in exile while the Nazis occupied Kiev, they both learn so much more about each other, their differences and similarities exposed. This book portrays how decisions made by your ancestors can carry on through the generations. It reminds us that women are facing many of the same issues that were present decades ago.

Natasha was as real as they come; her thoughts and actions so understandable from a new mom’s POV. I enjoyed her audition feedback and how her Russian accent could work for or against her. The author employed punctuated nuances throughout the book that made the story come alive. I look forward to reading more from this author.

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The one bright light in Natasha's life right now is her 90 year old grandmother Larissa. She's a new mother who is struggling to find a role - both literally and figuratively- as well as coping with her husband and his friend Stas who is living with them in their cramped apartment. Larissa, who currently lives in Kiev, tells Natasha her story, the story of their family, over Skype. It's an amazing one which rockets from the Revolution to today but her voice comes through most strongly during WWII and the years immediately after. This could have been a huge long book but Kuznetsova has compressed the saga to its essence. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Kuznetsova has earned her way into my “immediate preorder” list with this, her second novel to crack me up and make me worry.

“Your eyes were as big as moons. It was something unbelievable.”

Told from two perspectives – Larissa and Natasha. Larissa was Natasha’s grandmother, who was almost 90 years old. The novel started with Larissa having a conversation with Natasha via Skype, whom, out of the blue, asked her to talk about how Larissa’s grandmother died during World War Two. Larissa then, was in the midst of packing up things from her apartment for her move to her cottage on the Black Sea, and had nothing else to do. So, she gave in pretty easily, to Natasha’s surprise.

Larissa started her story with Baba Tonya, her ‘spoiled’ grandmother, who married a banker and had three children, 2 sons (one of them was Larissa’s dad) and a daughter. When Larissa’s dad turned twelve, the Revolution struck Ukraine and the Bolsheviks seized her grandparents’ apartment. So they decided to flee Ukraine. But before they could, Larissa’s grandfather died of typhus. To save her from further sufferings and to maintain her lavish lifestyle, Baba Tonya decided to accept a marriage proposal. But that didn’t last long either, as her new dwelling was seized and ‘divided up for the so-called proletariat’. Thus, the entire family had to be separated – Larissa’s father, 12 years old then, and her uncle, 9 years old, were sent to an orphanage in Kharkov, something Larissa never forgave Baba Tonya.

When Larissa’s father and mother met and married, they had two daughters – Larissa and Polya, her ‘smelly, spoiled, and achingly gorgeous sister,’ whom Baba Tonya loved and adored. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, their family was forced to evacuate by train to the remote town of Lower Turinsk. There, they lived under fear and led a life that had no guarantee of the future, living mouth to hand, from one day to the next.

As Natasha learned more about her grandmother, she felt ashamed for complaining about her problems, which seemed trivial compared to her Larissa’s, at one point saying, “how can we even dare to suffer when we know what our grandparents and parents went through to get us to this fucking country.” Yes, Natasha swore a lot, and her sense of humor had me chuckling a few times. Natasha, whose mom died of breast cancer when Natasha was seventeen, was living with her husband, Yuri, her baby girl, Talia, their cat Sharik and a temporary tenant, Stas, Yuri’s best friend. She was still struggling in her acting career, often getting stereotypical Russian characters like prostitutes and spies, although she almost caught a big break once in an eco-friendly tampon commercial for Lady Planet when she got recognized for a while, and at the same time juggling her role as a mother and wife, often asking herself is this all worth it, often questioning her choices in life.

There were a number of characters I grew to love. Larissa for one. She was strong, smart, determined, honest and witty, though she thought of the world as black or white, both a curse and a blessing. I really enjoyed reading Larissa’s story – the time they spent in Lower Turinsk, especially the entanglement Larissa got herself with between the Orlov brothers; and her siblingship with Polya, although they didn’t see eye-to-eye on many things, you can tell that they cared deeply for each other, in their own protective ways. . I enjoyed those ‘intimate’ moments she had with Bogdan, especially in the train on their way to Lower Turinsk, even those brief moments when they shared their thoughts on books. As for Mishka, he sounded like a coward. Why did she marry him!

With their stories running parallel to each other, you could see how similar they were, although Larissa thought Natasha reminded her of her sister Polya as they looked alike, both beautiful, turning heads wherever they went, and had a soft spot for animals, but Natasha was more like her more than she knew, both wild at heart and spirit, stubborn, funny and independent, and both didn’t seem to settle well in a stable marriage.

I thought Natasha’s story would’ve been better if through her, we could get to know her mother more intimately, someone who shared the same dreams as Natasha of wanting to become a star. I kept waiting to read more about her from Natasha, but there was hardly any, except for a few brief mentions and one right at the end, which totally didn’t make sense. Why bring her back at the end when she hardly made a dent in the story?

That said, overall this was still quite a good read, and a lot of it was due to Larissa’s story. It was her story that I looked forward to reading. There was just something missing in Natasha’s story – most likely, in my opinion, was her mother – the missing puzzle piece.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

All of the feels while reading this book. No seriously, all of them. Pick this one up immediately - you won't regret it.

“And soon I will evaporate and you will have no story to remember.”

Time has been brutal for widowed Larissa, and now approaching her ninetieth year, living in Kiev she video conferences her granddaughter Natasha, who lives in America- which may as well be another planet altogether. Natasha’s emotional state is harried dealing with the exhaustion of caring for her newborn daughter, burdened by her husband Yuri’s friend Stas (who is currently crashing at their place) and juggling motherhood while auditioning for parts. The truth of it is, she is barely clinging to the end of her rope. The only saving grace is that Stas is great with children, her and Yuri’s baby in particular. When she asks Larissa if she will finally tell her the story of her own grandmother, the whole story about her life during World War Two, she is surprised her grandmother barely puts up a fight. Larissa wonders if her granddaughter really cares or is just using it as a distraction. Larissa admits to herself she has told it in bits and pieces, not all of it, it wears on her heart to remember. Tonya was a spoiled woman of wealth who married a banker, misfortune came to call with the Revolution in Ukraine, and the couple’s ‘fine apartment’ was seized by the Bolsheviks. It is everything that followed after, when the plan to flee their homeland with their children is altered after her husband’s death from typhus and Tonya is forced to make big decision on her own. This choice changes the course of her two sons lives. This is how Larissa’s father and uncle, as children, were sent to an orphanage. It is also how the weak, spoiled Tonya was able to maintain her lavish lifestyle.

Years later, Larissa’s mother and father meet at the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev, marry and have two daughters, Larissa and her younger, achingly beautiful sister Polya. Naturally their shallow grandmother adores Polina and lavishes attention on her, which doesn’t endear the sisters to one another. Life goes on until threats of Hitler invading the Soviet Union begin to take hold and the family must evacuate by train to the remote town of Lower Turinsk. Larissa’s family tale spirals into darkness and raw brutality. They are not alone on this uncomfortable cargo train, joined by their father’s brother and his family along with another couple and their sweet little girl. Soon, they will be “as beaten down as mushrooms stocked away deep in a forest.” Hunger, fear, jealousy, desire and death shadow their flight to safety. Larissa opens up about her love for two brothers, wildly different in personality and temperament. Remembering being driven to distraction by the crying jags of her silly sister and grandmother, of being wearied even of the terrors visited upon them, tough as nails Larissa lets the memories flow despite the ache. Everything she thinks she understands about her silly sister is challenged over the years, turning her bitterness into something inexplicable. She has many regrets and is visited by the spectre of death, outliving even her own daughter, Natasha’s mother.

Natasha is ashamed, at times, of her own weakness and struggles, particularly knowing her ancestors were made of sterner stuff. Just imagining everything they lived through makes her feel like a pitiful creature. Motherhood hasn’t come as naturally as she expected it to, Yuri is no longer interested in her as a woman it seems and the only roles she fits the mold for are those of proustite or spy. Her body hasn’t felt like her own since giving birth, and the memories she’s suppressed about her dead mother and her own hidden talent has her struggling with the past. She needs to feel like herself again, to have something that is her own. She needs to work, it is acting that fills her with purpose! Can’t a mother have a life too? Though the challenges Natasha faces are nothing near as severe as war, starvation, and the horrors her grandmother Larisa confronted, there are still parallels. The telling draws them closer and the struggles of what it means being a woman with passions, while mothering a child, is a bridge to understanding the choices we make. Even when there doesn’t seem to be a choice, beautiful new stories can be born from the ruins.

As Larissa passes down this inheritance, her story, it reverberates through time. Natasha takes the tale and reshapes it to fit present day, and share the meaning, the very truth that is the beating heart of Larissa’s life. It is about being vulnerable, selfishness, love, desire, war, death, how we judge others and ourselves and all the misunderstandings in between. It is where we go with what we have when we arrive in unexpected places. It is beautiful but make no mistake, Larissa’s past is hell, one that is witness to the ugliest of humanity and still she goes on in spite of a world that tries to break her, carrying her ghosts with her.

It is a harrowing tale of war and family. Gorgeously written, I can’t wait for her next book, this one left me breathless. I really enjoyed Maria’s previous novel Oksana, Behave but this one is a punch in the gut!

Publication Date: April 31, 2021

Random House Publishing

Kuznetsova navigates a multigenerational family saga from a grandmother's memories of the Russian Revolution to her granddaughter's experiences in modern New York in Something Unbelievable. Grandmother Larissa steals the show with her stern humor but overall this was an enjoyable exploration into how these two women navigate the changing world around them.

This book is a multigenerational story about a Ukrainian family beginning on the Russian Revolution, specially during the WWII, going until nowadays in the US. I loved the story from Larissa's point of view. The author is extremely able to create the atmosphere and engage the reader in a historical environment and we are able to see the story unfolding and feel everything that all the characters are feeling. Some points of the story and some characters are simply heartbreaking; I felt so much for 2 side characters, it was so tragic, but so well done. I really liked Larissa's own story and her coming-of-age during a extremely time in her country and for her family; even though she angered me sometimes, I could understand everything she did.
I didn't like Natasha's story that much. I enjoyed her relationship with her grandmother and her struggles with motherhood, but I really didn't like the story with her marriage and everything related to it.
I liked the book very much, but some beats of Natasha's point of view made me not love the book, specially the ending..

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

Alternating stories of an woman who is struggling with her first child and maintaining her acting career and her sassy Ukrainian grandmother whose life has been a long, difficult journey.

Beautifully written, thought-provoking, and clever. Just generally one of the most absorbing reads I've encountered in months.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the early ebook. I was a big fan of the author’s first novel, Oksanna, Behave! This new one is told by two wonderful narrators: Natasha who lives in NYC with her husband and her newborn daughter. After a wild early twenties, Natasha has settled down, but those old desires are coming back as she tries to resurrect her acting career and can’t stop flirting with one of her husband’s best friends. The other narrator is Larissa, Natasha’s grandmother who lives in Kiev. Natasha gets her grandmother on skype and has her tell her the amazing story of what happened to her family as they were shipped out of Kiev during World War 2, for fear that the German’s would soon be overrunning the city. Her family would almost starve as her father is working in a factory, trying to design and manufacturer a new tank that could turn the tide for the Red Army. This story becomes a way for Natasha to feel closer to family she never knew and cathartic for Larissa to revisit those days one last time.

Something Unbelievable is a tale told in alternating voices of two women, generations apart. Larissa is an eighty-something grandmother who is facing a move from her family home in Kiev after having lost all of her family but her beloved granddaughter, Natasha, who lives in the United States. Natasha is experiencing her own struggles with a husband preoccupied with work, a newborn infant, her acting career teetering on extinction, and her husband’s deadbeat friend living in their apartment. Through frequent Skype calls, the two women maintain their bond and even strengthen it as Larissa describes her life in exile during WWII. With Hitler’s invasion of Russia, teenage Larissa flees to the mountains with her extended family and their friends only to face near-starvation, disease and untimely death.

I had a bit of trouble getting into the story, but once Larissa began to describe the events during WWII, I was hooked. The author draws upon her own experience of living in Kiev and immigrating to the US as a child, as well as her family’s history. It made the storyline emotionally rich and evocative with all the nuances of relationships strained by the trials of wartime. I felt much more affinity with Larissa than with Natasha, who seemed spoiled and self-absorbed, although she redeems herself somewhat by the end. And speaking of the end, the book leaves off with several unanswered issues left to the reader’s imagination to resolve. Overall, the book explores how life’s circumstances and individual choices can influence generations to come.

My thanks to the author, Random House, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing a digital ARC in exchange for an independent, honest review.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

I want to start by thanking NetGalley and Ballantine/Random House for this ARC. Something Unbelievable is a fabulously written book about two women, mother and grandmother, who share parallel life stories, from different generational periods. I personally had a hard time getting into it, and I don’t know if it was because of the mood I was in, or what. I appreciated the setting and the story line and thought the characters were easy to get to know. I would like to read this story again in the future. Overall a great read!

I will be sharing on Goodreads and Instagram. When released, I will post a review on Amazon.

The author seamlessly interweaves a multigenerational story of a well-to-do Ukrainian-Russian family from the time of the Russian Revolution, intensely through WWII and onto the present in the US. The novel begins with Larissa, now an elderly grandmother, telling her life story to her beloved granddaughter Natasha via regular Skype visits. Natasha is a new mother and a burgeoning actor who is struggling to put some order into her life. The intersections of these two women's personalities and weaknesses is engaging and I loved the full circle that came in the end. Larissa's struggles through WWII make for a consuming read all on their own. Many larger than life characters and incidents. I especially loved the droll voice of Larissa.

This is a multi-layered and carefully crafted novel that reads smooth like butter. Brava. One of the best novels I've read this year.