Review: Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid

Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was really cute. This is a longer version of Nobody Looks Good in Leather Pants, which was originally released in installments via Penny's newsletter in 2017. It is a standalone and my understanding is that the next book is going to continue as installments beginning in the June 2018 newstletter and will eventually be published as standalone as well. I really liked reading this as a complete book, I didn't always read the parts of the newsletter, even though I could have gone back and read them. I prefer to read serials in their entirety when they are complete. It's a preference thing.

This follows Anna, an intelectual student who hasn't had the best luck with boys and relationships. Her best friend Emily gives her the name of a guy to email to set up a date thinking they will hit it off. Anna mistakenly types in the wrong email and upon meeting her mystery guy, she finds out he isn't who she was supposed to meet. Anna panics and runs from the hansome leather pants wearing stranger and proceeds to make up all kinds of crazy things that he does in his spare time just because he rides a motorcycle and wears leather pants. She being being a lover of Russian literature, triva night, and puzzles surmises that he would never be into a quite, nerdy girl like herself. Fast forward a few weeks when Anna finds herself in a Russian literature class that she's been dying to take, the professor happens to been none other than leather pants wearing Luca Kroft, her mystery date. She eventually goes on a date with Lucas Kraft the boy she meant to email, but he turns out to be a terrible match for her. Professor Luca Kroft, however, ends up being more than she can handle. She can't ignore the initial attraction she felt towards him that night they met, and neither can he. He also can't help that she inspires passion in their debates about the Russian works they are discussing in class. In his attempts to be non-biased about his feelings towards Anna, he ignores her, which makes her angry. When she calls him out on it, sparks fly and things get tricky between the student and the teacher. Luca doesn't want to lose his teaching position and Anna doesn't want to risk her heart or her education for some guy. I feel like the taboo nature of their relationship was handled and covered appropriately.

I loved that Luca loved Anna for who she is. He didn't want to change her in any way. He just wanted to be with her and get to know her Anna is immature at times, but she is young and he takes her reactions in stride and goes with it. While they don't seem like a typical couple, they work. I also loved that he took things slowly with her. Sure there were some steamy times, but he didn't push her. They built a relationship, which is something I love about Penny's writing. Her characters while they usually have chemistry at first site, they don't typically jump right into bed and that's the rest of the story. There is a relationship that is built between the characters which makes the intimate scenes so much better.

You can tell that Penny puts so much time into researching every book she writes. I've read some of the works mentioned in Luca's class, and while Russian literature is not my favorite I do recall having similar discussion about those works in my classes. You can tell she takes pride in making sure her work is accurate in addition to being well crafted. I also loved the discussion Anna and Luca had about him not being able to math. As a person who studied engineering myself, and as a patron like Anna, I very much appreciated that humor. My favorite quote "I love to read, but I’m not a writer. I love philosophy, but I’m not a philosopher. I love art, but I can’t paint, I can’t draw or sculpt. I love movies and the theater, but I’m a terrible actor. Therefore, I’m a patron," as this describes me in a way.

I really enjoyed this and look forward to reading the next one.


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