Singularly bad--if this was a book for younger children, the quality might be more understandable, but no excuses on this one. There's too much beautifully written YA out there nowadays for that.
Someone suggested this book to me because I have an advanced degree in Russian Studies, so it seemed like it would be up my alley. From the description on the jacket, it sounded promising, but alas, it was not to be. For the people who are liking the Russian culture lesson...eh. Almost every single Russian word or phrase she used in the book was misspelled to the point of changing the meaning of the word, mistranslated, or misused...unfortunately, all three in some cases. Here are two off the top of my head: it's matryoshka, not matroyshka. "Ya khachu videt'" means "I want to see", not "I want." And Etanovich? Really????
The Russian folklore and culture bits read like she pulled them off Wikipedia and for Romanov history, I suppose she probably read "Nicholas and Alexandra" (or watched the movie). There's no deeper understanding of any of the Russian cultural bits that she tries out, it's all very American and very, oh, it's Russia, let's throw in some gratuitous mentions of the ballet and Tolstoy!
Leaving history and culture aside, the writing is not good. The characters are complete cardboard (except maybe Anastasia, but it's hard to tell, because reading the impossible cursive font that most of her entries were written in was just too annoying after a certain point). Tess and Anne's dialogue is a sad approximation of how adults think teenagers speak--it all comes off stilted and unfunny even when it's trying to be witty. And it never ends--the plot is heavily reliant on dialogue, and the dialogue is the worst part! The story pacing is just...weird. The plot was ridiculous and it didn't have to be. The ending might have been poignant (which is what I think it was going for) if it were written a little better.
It's not all terrible. I really feel like there were the components of a good story here...some individual elements of the story had real potential, and I think the basic premise of weaving "Vasilisa the Beautiful" with the legends surrounding the Romanovs could have worked beautifully. I don't think the writing necessarily had to be bad, either...there were paragraphs that were beautifully worded in places (like the first paragraph of the first chapter). It was just that those bits were so few and far between. I think the main problem for me is that it needed an editor desperately (first-time author???).
The way the book as a whole came off was wooden, stilted, and at times bizarrely offensive to the actual Romanovs, who were decidedly not fairy tale characters and were actually all murdered...exploitation through snuff fiction non-withstanding. Even that awful animated movie with the singing bat seemed less egregious of an offender, I think because that movie didn't dwell on the executions and the author of this mess is obsessed with them...she lovingly describes the shootings approximately 34575897854 times in this book in just as many different varieties of romanticized purple prose. Ugh. Those are real people's deaths!!!
For a much better book featuring variations on Russian folklore motifs (including a version of the same Baba Yaga tale mentioned here), try "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card (now this is meticulously researched). I wasn't the biggest fan of "Firebird" by Mercedes Lackey, but it's along similar lines to the Orson Scott Card book and written at about the same reading level as this one...and a much better book all around.
