The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

By -
33602110By: Scott Stambach
Location: FIC STA
Genre: Russia, love, disabilities, teenagers- all merged into one.

“So that, logically, in the brief time allotted to us, we should be as kind to one another as is humanly possible and face the harsh facts of reality without fear or flinching.”

In The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko, Scott Stambach presents a hilarious, heart-wrenching, and powerful debut novel about an orphaned boy who finds love and hope in a Russian hospital.

Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko is a life-long resident of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. Born deformed yet mentally keen with a frighteningly sharp wit, strong intellect, and a voracious appetite for books, Ivan is forced to interact with the world through the vivid prism of his mind. For the most part, every day is exactly the same for Ivan, which is why he turns everything into a game, manipulating people and events around him for his own amusement. That is, until a new resident named Polina arrives at the hospital. At first Ivan resents Polina. She steals his books. She challenges his routine. The nurses like her. She is exquisite. But soon he cannot help being drawn to her and the two forge a romance that is tenuous and beautiful and everything they never dared dream of. Before, he survived by being utterly detached from things and people. Now Ivan wants something more: Ivan wants Polina to live.  

“There are many themes in Ivan’s story as there are pages. It is at once a love story, a revelation of the dark legacy of the Soviet experiment, a conversation on medical ethics, a reproach of religious hypocrisy, and an admonition against choosing fear over purpose. But, ultimately, it is simply the story of a single human life, within which so much can be held. We hope the reader can pause to appreciate that fact.” —James C. Begley, 2014

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fearless

By -
Image
By: Chloe Phillips- Harris Location: FIC HAR  Genre: Real life horse race- Mongolia! This book is about an amazing kiwi woman challenging herself on a big adventure! I love stories like this for our students! Check out her Facebook page- it is inspirational; https://www.facebook.com/ChloeAdventurer/ The real-life adventures of a young woman pushing the limits, trusting her instincts and living her life off the beaten path Suffering through searing pain and delirious illness in frigid, makeshift conditions, Chloe Phillips-Harris, at the age of 25 years, summoned every ounce of determination to brave the world's most gruelling horse race - the Mongol Derby. This 1000-kilometre endurance race across the wild steppes, desert and mountains of Mongolia - a competition with no marked course, no support team, that requires riders to switch horses every 40 km - saw almost half the competitors drop out along the way, but Chloe persevered. Fearless  recounts Chloe's childhood g...
Read more

Where's Wally

By -
Image
By: Martin Handford Location: Wherever you might find Wally- there the book is! Genre: Still looking for one. So one of our students who left school last year thought it humerous to circle all the Wally's or Waldo's if you are from Europe- in our books- first one made me smile- but by the time I had seen this in all three books- I was not! Because you all love Wally so much- we bought you some new books! Enjoy and keep Wally's whereabouts a secret!!
Read more

A Disaster in Three Acts

By -
Image
 By: Kelsey Rodkey Location: FIC ROD Genre: Young Adult Romance Fans of Elise Bryant and Rachel Lynn Solomon will swoon for Last Chance Books author Kelsey Rodkey’s next romance, packed with snark, banter, and inconvenient crushes. Saine Sinclair knows a little something about what makes a story worth telling. Your childhood best friend refuses to kiss you during a pre-adolescent game of spin the bottle? Terrible, zero stars, would not replay that scene again. The same ex-friend becomes your new best friend’s ex? Strangely compelling, unexpected twist, worth a hate-watch. That same guy—why is he always around? —turns out to be your last shot at getting into the documentary filmmaking program of your dreams? Saine hates to admit it, but she’d watch that movie. There’s something about Holden that makes her feel like she’s the one in front of the camera—like he can see every uncomfortable truth she’s buried below the surface. Saine knows how her story’s supposed to go. So why does eve...
Read more