A grounded yet fantastical story about a young woman, Sasha, who is selected to attend the Institute of Special Technologies. Sasha attends this mysterious college and is thrust into a world of dark academia with widespread and fantastical implications.

“Attention, students,” continued Portnov just as softly. “You are at the beginning of a journey, during which all of your strength will be required. Physical and mental. What we will be studying is not for everyone. Not everyone can handle what this does to a person. You have been carefully selected, and you all have what it takes to make that journey successfully. Our science does not tolerate weakness and takes cruel revenge on laziness, on cowardice, and on the most infinitesimal attempt to avoid learning the entire curriculum. Is that understood?”

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Minor spoilers to follow

I blasted my way through this novel, I would be lying if I didn’t mention that it pulled me in with compelling mysteries and fantastic mind bending depictions of a character who’s mind is bending in ways it shouldn’t.

She detonated herself like a grenade, ran all over in a stream, and enveloped the entire auditorium in a thin fog. A split second, and the fog thickened and charged at […], storming into his nostrils, pouring into his throat, catching the foreign breath.

A scent of cologne flashed. It became dark.

One more second. Sasha lay crumpled like a wet rug. In heavy drops she poured onto the wooden floor, flowed into the wide cracks between the planks, collected into a puddle. A new second: Sasha lay limp, her clothes soaked through, gelatinous like a jellyfish, without a single muscle, without a single thought. The unseasonably warm February sun beat into the windows of the brightly lit auditorium 14.

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Unfortunately this novel loves setting up mysteries but doesn’t know how to unravel them in a satisfying way. The mysteries and the way they were handled were part of why I was so enraptured by the story but the mysteries eventually, especially through the process of being revealed, lost their luster and lessened my appreciation for everything that happened leading up to the reveals.

Marina and Sergey Dyachenko seem to love flaunting the fact that most of the explanations behind these mysteries are being withheld from Sasha (and the reader) for seemingly no reason, other than to act as a carrot on the stick for the reader to follow, over and over again. Here are just a few examples:

“Because you never explained to us what we are being taught, let alone why!”

“You would not be able to understand it. It’s too early.”

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…

“Too early, my girl. It’s too soon for you to know. Right now you are still a slave of a framework, a plaster mold with a hint of imagination. With memory, with a personality . .

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…

“That thing that was there . . . What is it?”

[…]

“That, Alexandra, is too early for you to know. No need. I promise you, though—you will. You will find out during your exam.”

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This book has some interesting ideas, I just wish they were laid out in a different way and paid off eventually.

The idea of an exclusive college teaching students secret knowledge about the world is a really compelling premise and I can see why this premise is so popular. But the terrible wrapping up of the mysteries and the incomprehensible ending has thrown me for such a loop that I feel myself actively resisting thinking about this book as anything else other than a missed opportunity that isn’t worth thinking too much about.