Reviews for Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana

The average rating for Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-14 00:00:00 Brian Revitzky While the concept is interesting, the story isn't engaging. This book is one of very, very few that I simply couldn't bring myself to finish. "Around the Bloc" was written when Griest was in her early twenties, and it's clear that her authorial voice was still incubating. The narration often comes across as immature and overly dramatized. Take this passage for example: We couldn't move, couldn't speak. Couldn't do a thing but watch...At some point, I turned around to find Kandy quivering. At first I thought she was laughing, then crying. But when we made eye contact, I saw it was neither. Placing my hand on her shoulder, I steered her out the door to the courtyard, where she shuffled through the mounds of snow until she could finally feel the cold. Then she sat on a bench, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply as the bolt of culture shock fizzled away. Does this tale of paralyzing culture shock relate to: (a.) Watching as a demonstrator is forcibly detained by police, (b.) Witnessing a man shove and publicly berate his wife, or (c.) Checking out library books Yes, folks...Library books. Griest's inclusion of historical notes is welcome and her voice is occasionally uniquely illuminating, but her insight is too underdeveloped to invest much time in her narrative.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-01 00:00:00 Noah Fox A mostly delightful account of the author's time spent living in three Communist countries: Russia (although it was 5 years past Communism when she lived there), China, and Cuba. The big downside was Griest's tendency to come across very "ugly American" at certain points in the book. I especially found her never-wavering belief that everyone wants to be like America to be grating, particularly by time she got to her third country, after she had been repeatedly told that people pretty much don't. I mean, really, how hard is it to understand that peoples of different countries have different values and not everybody thinks that America is the most awesome place in the world? However, Griest did seem relatively self-aware of her own "ugly American" tendencies, which made up for it to some extent. And, otherwise, her writing was very accessible, fun, and interesting. I found her chapter on Russia particularly informative and insightful. I zipped through this book very fast.