Book One of the Vita Nostra trilogy
Sasha was a promising young high school student when she noticed a strange man is watching her whenever she is outside. Eventually the man approached her and gave her a task to perform. Every morning she had to get up early and go to the beach, strip off her clothes and go for a nude swim. If she didn't do as he said, there would be bad consequences to her family: "You will, Sasha. You will. Because the world around you is very fragile. Every day people fall down, break their bones, die under the wheels of a car, drown..."
Sasha only has one person that she loves in her life, her mom. Sasha's dad is not a part of her life and she has no siblings. It's just Sasha and her mom. So she does what the strange man orders her to do. Of course, it doesn't end with the nude swimming. As graduation approaches, he forces her into attending a small college in a distant town, the Institute of Special Technologies.
Once she gets settled into the college, she comes to understand that all the students attending are there under the same threats she is. She gets to know one male student who stood up against the strange man. This kid, Kostya, reveals that the man is his father. Kostya did not want to attend this college either and as a consequence, his beloved grandmother died. And his father made it clear it was because Kostya was defying him. The two kids vow to kill the man, Kostya's father, if they ever are able to do so.
The texts and the rules of when and how to study them are different and strange and perplexing. But Sasha begins to absorb them and her perceptions of reality become affected. She is such a good student that she gets into trouble for reading ahead and experiencing frightening consequences. On one hand, her instructors applaud her achievements but then get angry when she gets too far ahead. She is constantly getting into trouble for that.
But outside of the studies and the feeling of oppression that envelopes the students, life there is typical of any college. Kids form cliques, kids pair up, kids test the boundaries, drink too much, smoke too much, hook up too much. Sasha is no different from the kids when it comes to college kid behavior. She gets involved with Kostya but then dumps him and finds a new boyfriend. But she and Kostya never lose their connection of their hatred of his father.
As the college years pass and Sasha becomes an adult, she begins to understand just what the teachers are and what she is becoming. This is where the story gets even more strange. I would like to explain it but it sounds so ridiculous. All I can say is everything is words. Sasha is a word, Kostya is a word, all humans are words or parts of words. And that Kostya's father, the man who forced her into this situation, is not human. He is a text file? A program? A book disguised as a person? It was all rather murky to me.
The book was really interesting even though the transformations the students are enduring are hard to comprehend. It's kind of a combination of Harry Potter and The Matrix. The students' understanding of the true nature of reality gives them powers, including the ability to manipulate time itself. But they don't perform spells (at least not in this book), their abilities arise from the perception of the true nature of things. Quite a start to a new series!
The next book in the series is Assassin of Reality.
Here is a review by Kirkus.
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