Book Review #4: Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

***

This was a beast of a book. The beginning was juicy. I, like everyone, knew what the main plot revolved around and the personalities of the characters and the showcasing of the formal nature of society made it pretty captivating. Also, it had this beauty of a line to refer to consummating an affair:

“That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires; that which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and even for that reason more entrancing dream of bliss, that desire had been fulfilled.”

But the longer I read, the more it felt like an obligation. The characters started to wear me down and annoy me, the decisions started to seem too dramatic, and the forward plot seemed lost. Ultimately, I was relieved it was over and I could move on to a different book.