"The Half Life of Valery K" by Natasha Pulley

This is the fifth book by Natasha Pulley that I have read, and up until this book, I absolutely loved her work. However, I suppose each author stumbles every now and again and produces something that could have been better. This review contains spoilers, so if you have not read the book yet, proceed with caution.

The Half Life of Valery K takes place in the 1960s in Russia. Our main character Valery (this is a male name in Russian) is a political prisoner in the gulag and a brilliant biochemist and radiation expert, who gets plucked out of the prison camp to work on a secret radiation study. As we learn a bit later, the location he gets transferred to, is the place where some sort of nuclear disaster took place several years prior. As Valery starts working on the project led by his old university mentor, he discovers shocking truths about what really happened and is happening around him. The story also features a male-male romance between our main character and a KGB officer.

Here is why this book missed the mark. First of all, the easiest way Pulley could have avoided a myriad of misses, is by hiring a cultural sensitivity reader. Here is just a taste for what I mean:

- to say that no one in the Soviet Union heard of Sverdlovsk, is like saying no one in the US has ever heard of Cleveland

- Soviet elevators in apartment blocks had no music in them

- in the 1960s Soviet televisions had no remote controls, programming ended no later than midnight, and there were 2 channels at most - in a remote location where Valery lives, there was probably just one channel. It is much more likely that he would listen to the radio than constantly turn the TV on

- a romance between a KGB officer and a political prisoner is so tone-deaf, I don't even know where to begin... let's just start with the fact that for Valery to fall in love with someone who tortures and shoots innocent people for a living is entirely out of character and does not match up with his own history in the gulag

- lack of understanding how Russian patronymics and last names work

- Alyoshenka is an endearing name of a boy, not a girl

I will stop there. There were lots of other things that were jumping at me as I was reading. However, I like Pulley's writing so much that I was going to overlook all of these faux pas just for the sake of the story. But, then we got to the ending.... The fact that Valery's love interest abandons his wife who has stage 4 cancer and their four children, while he enjoys life in the UK did not sit well with me. I understand that Pulley likes for her romantic lines to have a happy ending. But when you set your story in Soviet Russia, your book needs to be grittier and more realistic. If this was a fantasy, or an alternative history book, I could have written off all of it. However, this appears to be a straight up historical fiction novel, and as such, it is not sufficiently researched or thought through. The more I think about this book, the more I realize that it could have been so much better, had the author spent a bit more time on the details. Pretty disappointed. 2 out 5 stars.

"All My Rage" by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage is hands down my favorite read of 2022. I hesitated to pick it up because it is targeted at a younger audience, but having read it, I now firmly believe this should be assigned reading in high schools, or at the very least included on summer reading lists. The book follows a dual timeline: in the present we follow Sal (Salahudin) and his closest friend Noor. Both teens have troubled family lives and are burdened with the types of problems, no child should be dealing with at this age. Sal is desperately trying to save the motel that his family owns as his mother’s health fails and his dad loses himself to drink. And Noor works at her uncle’s liquor store and secretly applies to colleges knowing that her uncle will be irate if he finds out about her college dreams.

The second timeline is about Sal’s parents arranged marriage in Pakistan and eventual immigration to the United States. This way, we get a bit of a background on what they’ve been through and how they found themselves in the desert town of Juniper, California thousands of miles away from Lahore. 

I must say, this is not an easy read. The characters in this book deal with a lot of trauma and heartbreak. It’s like the fates decided to get a concentrated dose of pain and lobbed it at the main characters just to see if they will be left standing. Trigger warnings for those who need them: death of close relative, child abuse, off page implied child molestation, alcohol and drug use/addiction, natural disasters.

The book at its core has the message of hope and redemption. It is also a great account of immigrant experience. Every immigrant experience is unique and every one includes a portion of heartbreak, insecurity, bitter disappointment, naiveté, and always hope and desire of a better life. For different people, the proportions are different and some immigrant stories include huge successes, others – spectacular failures, and most – relatively happy, stable, respectable lives. Those who have seen tremendous lows are more likely to be content with little. Sal and Noor without a doubt face major lows, but in the end, their story concludes on a very hopeful note. It was important for me to know this going in. I don’t think my heart could have taken a terrible ending to the story that was fraught with so much pain. 5 out of 5 stars. I definitely recommend this novel.