This was recommended to me by Katharine McGee (author of The Thousandth Floor and American Royals) and I was incredibly excited to read it, especially upon hearing that HBO is already developing it into a TV show. It lived up to the hype! It’s Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina reimagined and it feels a lot like a mix between Gossip Girl and Crazy Rich Asians. Anna K is living any teenager’s dream life on the Upper East Side. She has the perfect boyfriend (perfect, even if he is kind of boring), a great group of friends, and has always been the good girl (keeping her Korean-American father happy and proud of her). When she meets Alexia Vronsky, her whole world is jilted. There are other wonderful characters: Anna’s party-boy brother Steven, his sweet but clueless girlfriend Lolly, Lolly’s sister Kimmie, and Steven’s best friend Dustin. There are love triangles galore, juicy dramas and even deaths… and I couldn’t put it down. It’s luxe and opulent, it’s engrossing but also heartbreaking, it’s just a really fun read.
Author: Jenny Lee
