Vita nostra
Vita nostraMarina Dyachenko
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Vita nostra (2018)

Marina Dyachenko

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

"While vacationing at the beach with her mother, Sasha Samokhina meets the mysterious Farit Kozhennikov under the most peculiar circumstances. The teenage girl is powerless to refuse when this strange and unusual man with an air of the sinister directs her to perform a task with potentially scandalous consequences. He rewards her effort with a strange golden coin. As the days progress, Sasha carries out other acts for which she receives more coins from Kozhennikov. As summer ends, her domineering mentor directs her to move to a remote village and use her gold to enter the Institute of Special Technologies. Though she does not want to go to this unknown town or school, she also feels it's the only place she should be. Against her mother's wishes, Sasha leaves behind all that is familiar and begins her education. As she quickly discovers, the institute's "special technologies" are unlike anything she has ever encountered. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, their families pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want" -- Front jacket flap.

ISBN:
9780063054158
Length:
406 pages

Genres: fantasy, literary fiction

Lists: …

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Reviews4

jennaclarek
Loved it

I read both of these books the first one and the second one this year the second one actually just came out in March so who knows when the next book will come out I like the first book a lot more than the second one because the second one gets even weirder somehow