Vodka Neat by Anna Blundy

Highly Recommended

Vodka Neat by Anna Blundy

Vodka Neat throws messed-up journalist Faith Zanetti for a loop. As a teen, she met and fell in love with a fairytale and starving Russia and married into it. Just a brief time later, she fled back to England after being exposed to the reality of that life. Now she is back in Russia in her official capacity as a reporter, but Russia swallows her up as if she were still 19, and had never left.

The best part about this book is the love affair its journalist author has with her location. Her gritty stories and unfortunate characters are just pawns to be moved through the landscape portrayals of struggling Russia, and although they are gritty and unfortunate and struggling, there is a poetic beauty brought to all of it in the descriptions of this country's very real life.

Blundy gives it all a good sell, and makes you believe it is real, your life with lots of action and intrigue. I felt for all of her broken characters, especially Faith. She is smart, capable, lovable and completely cracked. The bit of damaged goods in all of us feels her pain and her idiocy, and wants to know more. Russia mimics her - all at once worn and brand new, failing and yet succeeding, hopeless and absolutely determined to have hope.

If you enjoy this, follow up with the Bad News Bible, which puts Faith into the equally volatile world of a journalist in Israel, and the seedy back alleys of that culture on the edge. Blundy's second book feels more depressing as it deals with child trafficking, something that is ugly no matter which way you turn it, but also puts the reader back into the messed up mind of Faith and her struggle to stay upright and afloat. And there is always just enough redemption.