Reese's Book Club | September '19: The Secrets We Kept
Image Source: amazon.com
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott is the Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine pick for September 2019! When a single book captures the interest of the world during the Cold War, the lives of many are profoundly affected. Based on real CIA records, author Lara Prescott reimagines what life would have been like for those tasked with acquiring the Russian novel Dr. Zhivago and covertly distributing is as propaganda. The Secrets We Kept is more than a spy novel - it’s a thriller, a quasi-history lesson, a romance novel, and an emotional reminder about oppression, propaganda, and sacrifice.
For more information about the Author, Reese’s Book Club, or my SPOILER FILLED thoughts on the book - scroll down!
my rating:
Here are some links to purchase the book and/or learn more about Lara Prescott:
Book: amazon.com
Audiobook: audible.com
Lara Prescott’s Website: laraprescott.com
Lara Prescott’s Instagram: @laraprescott
If you would like to find out more about Reese's Book Club and/or follow along as well, here are some helpful links!
Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Website: hello-sunshine.com/book-club
Complete List of Monthly Picks: hello-sunshine.com/post/reeses-book-club-all-picks
Instagram: @reesesbookclub
Goodreads: goodreads.com
*** spoiler alert ***
What a fantastic book! Could you imagine living in a time or place where literature and art was so tightly controlled by the Government, and expressing anti-patriotic sentiments was a punishable offense?! Is it environments like that which contribute to the power of something as simple as a book? A book that held so much power that foreign governments sought to use it as a tool? What is absolutely astounding is that the mission for Dr. Zhivago wasn’t fiction but actually happened!!! Seriously - you can read through some of the officially declassified documents here: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/doctor-zhivago. I had to research everything because it felt like a real biography, even though I knew it couldn’t be.
While the mission for the Pasternak novel really happened, the character or the stories behind them are just a beautiful work of fiction. I absolutely loved the narrative style with the different characters who had their own unique perspective. Every time the story line switched to a new character, I found myself wishing that every single one of them had a full-length solo novel of their own tales. I was fascinated by the typists, I fell in love with Irina, I wanted to know so much more about Sally’s life, and I wanted to sit and interview Olga and Boris personally and for completely different reasons.
I found myself having A LOT of resentment against the injustices towards women during this time period. Yes, the stories were mostly made up - but they still rang with so much truth. I was LIVID about the fact that Olga, not Boris, had to endure the camps TWICE because of the damn book! Boris might have felt some torment but he never had to do hard labor like she did. How absolutely unfair!!!
Olga’s story, by far, was the one that hurt my heart the most. Not the wife, but the lover. Not the writer, but the punished. Never having him completely, but being mostly okay with that. It was both twisted and romantic that the love for their country and the love for each other compelled them to make irrational choices. She was someone to admire and someone I wanted to shake with outrage. The ending almost made me lose my mind! Her daughter ended up in the damn camps because of the damn book too! Did they both survive? Did they go back to the neighbor’s house and retrieve the money? Did they ever leave Russia because Russia didn’t love them the way they loved it?! UGH.
Speaking of injustices, how about the fact that Sally and Irina were absolutely madly in love but couldn’t ever be together?! How about the fact that being raped, then ignored, then fired, led Sally to a life of espionage and an eventual arrest as an old woman!? I was almost rooting for Sally when she turned double-agent because I wanted Henry to suffer for what he did to her. Do we actually know what happened to him? Did they torture him or kill him? I wanted to know more!
This book made me feel angry, sad, happy, nervous - and it really made me feel gratitude towards being born in a modern era in a place where we have most of our freedoms available to us. I loved everything about this book and wished there was a follow up novel about Irina and Sally!