Hersey’s translation is plain and straightforward, a wise choice that enhances the deep strangeness of this trippy, vivid novel. She is nevertheless a sympathetic heroine, and readers will gladly follow her fascinating, disturbing story to its transcendent conclusion. Her ordeals are frequently harrowing, and all too often she seems nearly powerless in the face of forces that are manipulating and shaping her into something beyond mere humanity. But there are no comforting elements of wish-fulfillment in this school story. Sasha excels at the mind-bending, body-transforming “special technologies” her prodigious talent links her to the hidden mechanics of time, space, and reality itself. There, students are confronted with unreadable texts and demanding professors, and their obedience is enforced by threats of harm to their families. A mysterious man asks 16-year-old Sasha Samokhina to perform a series of bizarre, potentially humiliating tasks that lead to her admission to the enigmatic Institute of Special Technologies. While it is a book set in a magic school, it is dissimilar to most everything else I’ve encountered in the magic school subgenre. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko is difficult to compare to other books without giving an incorrect impression. The Dyachenkos’ 2007 novel takes the trope of young people selected for a school for magic and transforms it into an unnerving, deeply philosophical coming-of-age tale. Buy Vita Nostra by Dyachenko, Marina, Dyachenko, Sergey, Meitov Hersey, Julia (ISBN: 9780008272890) from Amazon's Book Store.
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