Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Disappearing Earth
Julia Phillips
Review by Priscilla Comen
Disappearing Earth
Julia Phillips
Review by Priscilla Comen
Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips, is the story of two sisters, Alyona and Sophia, who disappear from a small community in Russia. It is also about two friends, Diana and Olya, high school girls who hang out together. Diana’s mother doesn’t want her daughter to be with Olya. She dislikes her and her mother for being different. There’s also Max and Katya, a couple going camping to a hot springs. (Except Max forgot the tent.)
Katya thinks Max is incompetent and she could never be with him. But when he scares the bear away by honking the car’s horn, she decides she loves him after all. It’s also about Diana’s mother Valentine, who goes to the doctor because of a small blister on her chest. It’s been there for months and she doesn’t realize how serious it is. She is sent to the hospital and taken into the OR. Kyusha is another character in this Russian town. Her boyfriend is Ruslan. He wants to know where she is every minute. But when she takes a dancing class with her room mate Alisa, she is on her own. In the class, she makes a male friend, Chander. They talk before and after class. She gets better at the dance steps. They talk about the missing girl. She likes that Ruslan protects her, and keeps in touch by phone. She recalls the summers with her family, herding the deer, cooking around the fire, sleeping in the yurt with the moon shining in. Author Phillips gives us the setting and backstory.
On New Year’s Eve, Lada goes to a party. She gets drunk and everyone goes into the sauna. Her old friend Masha, returns from St Petersburg. She is still beautiful in her bikini after all these years. Lada recalls how they would go hiking up the volcano when they were young girls. After the heat of the sauna, they go outside where it is freezing, sit on the front step next to each other. Masha says she has an important job and lives with her girlfriend. Lada tells her to be careful. She could be killed for admitting she’s a lesbian.
Next, we meet Natasha and her two children. Her husband Yuri is out on a military submarine for the season. They get along better when he’s away. Natasha’s neighbor invites her over for tea. She spikes it with whiskey. They speak of the missing girls. Natasha’s younger sister went missing at age seventeen. Their brother, Denis, who is retarded, says she was taken by aliens to outer space. Many of these female characters want to leave their husbands, and their present situations. Some of them do, by being kidnapped or “taken” by aliens. Author Phillips shows us a Russia where tensions and longing have always existed as she sets this against the crime of two missing sisters. Phillips brings the characters together in a stunning novel. Find it on the new book shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Katya thinks Max is incompetent and she could never be with him. But when he scares the bear away by honking the car’s horn, she decides she loves him after all. It’s also about Diana’s mother Valentine, who goes to the doctor because of a small blister on her chest. It’s been there for months and she doesn’t realize how serious it is. She is sent to the hospital and taken into the OR. Kyusha is another character in this Russian town. Her boyfriend is Ruslan. He wants to know where she is every minute. But when she takes a dancing class with her room mate Alisa, she is on her own. In the class, she makes a male friend, Chander. They talk before and after class. She gets better at the dance steps. They talk about the missing girl. She likes that Ruslan protects her, and keeps in touch by phone. She recalls the summers with her family, herding the deer, cooking around the fire, sleeping in the yurt with the moon shining in. Author Phillips gives us the setting and backstory.
On New Year’s Eve, Lada goes to a party. She gets drunk and everyone goes into the sauna. Her old friend Masha, returns from St Petersburg. She is still beautiful in her bikini after all these years. Lada recalls how they would go hiking up the volcano when they were young girls. After the heat of the sauna, they go outside where it is freezing, sit on the front step next to each other. Masha says she has an important job and lives with her girlfriend. Lada tells her to be careful. She could be killed for admitting she’s a lesbian.
Next, we meet Natasha and her two children. Her husband Yuri is out on a military submarine for the season. They get along better when he’s away. Natasha’s neighbor invites her over for tea. She spikes it with whiskey. They speak of the missing girls. Natasha’s younger sister went missing at age seventeen. Their brother, Denis, who is retarded, says she was taken by aliens to outer space. Many of these female characters want to leave their husbands, and their present situations. Some of them do, by being kidnapped or “taken” by aliens. Author Phillips shows us a Russia where tensions and longing have always existed as she sets this against the crime of two missing sisters. Phillips brings the characters together in a stunning novel. Find it on the new book shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.