Note: This book uses the word "g*psy" as if it were not a slur which, I have been informed, it is. If you're sensitive to this, don't read this book, but I do know that some people are unaware it is a slur in the first place 
 2.5 stars 
 The Basics 
 This had a little depth but most of it was shallow and sappy with simplistic writing and it could've been a lot better had we taken the historical element a bit more into account. It seemed accurate, but just not in focus most of the book. A lot of the beginning seemed like a joke, to be honest, and the barriers between Laura and Alexei seemed to be conveniently ignored at certain points. A particularly stupid moment was when Laura snuck Alexei into the foreigners-only shop in disguise and - despite a serious 39-clues-type blunder, they somehow pull it off. 
 Laura faked a light laugh. "He's full-blooded Irish. Skip O'Rourke is his name. His ancestors came from, uh, Tipperary." 
 (Note: If you're a security guard, be suspicious if only one person talks your entire encounter with said person, especially if said person tells the other person to shut up. 
 Trope check 
 *mysterious, chivalrous foreign boy 
 "Then I well go without [a mustache] too. For you." 
 For her! So Continental and un-American. So romantic. 
 *INSTALOVE 
 *rebel artist types 
 *guy's main positive attribute is his looks 
 *"I can't live without you"/ "What if we're separated forever," etc. cliched romance terms 
 *reveling in stupid sh*t 
 The way he pronounced her name - Laoora, oo, oo - did something strange to her. 
 She could see the bones of his face better. He looked younger, even younger than her was, but definitely more handsome. 
 *best friend who sticks to the rules unlike rebel MC/ is shallow/comic relief"Where is the passion?" Laura moaned as the wind bit at her nose. "Where is the soul?... Where is the beauty?" 
 Is that what you came here for? I came for the wild punk rock scene. You think you're disappointed...." Karen stopped just outside the university gate. "I'm going to find a bakery or something. Loaf of black bread? 
 "You're not the only one who thinks she's in love. Some ballerina's got Dan wrapped around her bony little finger. Clara has fallen for a dissident folk singer, and Mark Calletti, the world's biggest geek, is in love with three different girls."*"Forbidden" romance 
 The Americans had been warned during orientation, before they'd even arrived in Leningrad, to beware of falling in loved. For most Russians, there was only one way to leave the Soviet Union, and that was to marry a foreigner.... "Be on guard," her chaperones had told them. "Don't fall for it 
 but Alexei is special 
 "Okay, it's a little suspricious. For everybody else. Alyosha is different 
 (view spoiler)[by the end we're not totally sure about that, but for most of the book, that is the truth (hide spoiler)] 
 *Russia, the land of magic, ballet and lost unicorns 
 *"No one understands our true love" 
 All this book really is is tropes. There's a bit of depth, but the cheesiness of other parts ruins all potential "feels" and that stuff