Don’t you just hate when you have read a great book and the ending was so controversial or confusingand you just want to talk about it with someone and NO ONE HAS READ IT? I know, it’s happened to all of us. In fact, this is one of the reasons I became a blogger! However, in my reviews I rarely give away the ending or talk about a twist. So, how do we talk about anything and everything in a book?

 In the comments section of a book discussion post. 

I will occassionally write a post that is intended to be a discussion about a book that I hope someone else has read and had the same questions, or has had different questions and has been dying to discuss with someone! These will fall on Sundays and I’ll title them Has Anyone Read… because I just need to discuss this book! 

Has anyone read A Gentleman from Moscow? I loved this book and will also be posting a review but wanted to talk about it with people. There were so many things that made me think! FYI- I will be talking about the ending of this book so if you haven’t read this wonderful novel please don’t spoil it for yourself. STOP HERE!

1. Alexander Rostov- a Count by birth and up to the start of this book had a privileged upbringing, wrote a poem that was political in nature, and was put under house arrest in a hotel in Moscow for the rest of his life. Harsh!  Here’s my first question. Alexander seemed to accept this punishment as his due. He never fought it or tried to just wander out the door for an adventure. If you were imprisoned in a hotel would you react as he did? 
2. He befriends a female child while she and her father were living in the hotel. Nina appears briefly as a teenager then a young adult. Suddenly, she appears and drops off her daughter Sophia at the hotel to live with Alexander. Then she drops off the face of the earth. We never hear what happened to her? Did I miss something? Did she die? Did she just abandon her daughter? 
3. I loved how Anna came into Alexander’s life again and again. Why did he never reveal his relationship with her? He was a gentleman so did he think he was protecting her? After all, in that age (1920-late1940’s) society probably wouldn’t look very favorably on her for involving herself with an unmarried man confined to a hotel. 
4. I loved the ending of this book. I loved the comparisons to Casablanca and how the Count outmaneuvered everyone so that Sophia could ask for asylum from the US embassy while in Paris. But then what happened to her? Are we to assume that she never saw the Count again? That she would give up her papa? I didn’t see that one coming! What do you think happened to her?
5. Who was the woman at the end of the book? I’m assuming it was Anna who stood up from the chair, but it also could’ve been Sophia? It could have been the very absent Nina too. But I think it was Anna. Oh, what a great ending, I just wish it had been more definitive!

Has anyone else read this book? Do you have any thoughts about what I wrote above? Do you have any topics that you’d like to discuss about A Gentleman From Moscow? Speak up! Let’s discuss this fabulous book! 

Until next Sunday,

Deb

 Click this link to purchase!  A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel