A fascinating look at a country we know very little about other then what we read in the headlines.The author was very brave to enter this world she shares with us the lives of the people day to day suffering.This was a really interesting read the author shares her interactions her view of their lives.An author to follow through more of her life experiences.#netgalley#uofnebraskapress

I was a kid when we heard about the Chernobyl disaster. I remember it being on the news for weeks and then being the catalyst for a number of apocalyptic-style TV programmes, warning us about the disastrous prospect of a nuclear winter. Over the years I’ve read lots about it, had friends who have gone to the Ukraine to visit the site of the disaster, and more recently, was hooked on the popular Chernobyl miniseries produced by HBO & Sky.

So, when I got the chance to read this book I was, to say the least, excited.

Katya Cengel is a journalist and back in the 90s, she decided to ride the wave of young writers who went East in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and took a job at the Baltic Times.

In this book, she tells us about her adventures; the long, lonely, freezing cold nights, frequently with no running water or heating, apartments with walls missing and desperately trying to keep warm with ‘hot water bottles’ fashioned from Pepsi bottles. She is, understandably unhappy – seems to hate it there, but keeps at it. She makes friends and has relationships with some wholly unsuitable men. I’m not really sure why she stays. Over time her health begins to suffer and only when she is scarily close to death with an undiagnosed condition, does she go home – only to return as soon as she’s feeling better. When she falls ill again, she has to rely on her boyfriend’s family to use their hard-saved cash to bribe the doctors into treating her. Katya just seems to be a bad fit for the life she’s chosen herself and if you’re familiar with the Pulp song ‘Common People’, it felt a bit like that for me. She was living in hard times in the Eastern bloc but she seems to not take on board the fact that she’s just a tourist really, the people who live there were born there, and have very little chance or opportunity to go and make a living elsewhere.

Also, I felt a bit cheated. The book is called ‘From Chernobyl with Love and there is very little Chernobyl actually in there

I’m not saying this book is awful, far from it. I liked Katya, I liked her detailed and evocative descriptions of the Soviet bloc in the 90s, and I swear I could feel the cold when I read of her shivering in bed with no heat in the middle of a freezing winter– even though I was reading it on a Spanish sun lounger in 90 degree heat. However my biggest gripe was with the structure as I felt it didn’t flow very well and enjoyable as it was, it read more like a series of blog posts than a book.

3/5

So, I'm gonna be honest.

I'm not sure what this book is... for.

Most memoirs seem to have some kind of a theme or story of growth or... Well, you know what I mean. That's how people can write four thousand memoirs and have them all be different (I'm looking at you, Augusten Burroughs). They aren't just, "First I went here and I did this thing, and then I went there and did that thing."

Uh, this kind of is.

And that doesn't have to be a bad thing, really, if they're fun to read or tell a good story or are a travelogue or something.

This book is, like, none of those things?

The story of a woman who worked as a newspaper reporter in the Soviet bloc, the only unifying theme is how much she desperately wants to work in the Soviet bloc but how much she hates it there. It's an experience of a naive person who refuses to learn from experience, is more than a touch racist, and doesn't seem to understand these people with these difficult, austere lives aren't doing it by choice, even though she lived, reported on, and even married a man from there. Originally from California, she never seems to drop the mindset of privileged West Coast denizen. But she really wants you to know her name is Katya, which is like, so Russian. I can't figure her out.

I'm giving this two stars not because the writing is particularly good - in fact, it's stilted in places and not even particularly easy to follow - but because the opening segment about her time in Latvia was a really nice portrait of the Baltic states after the fall of the Soviet Union. If it had just been that, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.

This memoir by a journalist who has worked in various locations in the former Soviet Union should have been fascinating. Instead, it's disorganized an disjointed, a badly stitched-together collection of anecdotes that are rarely connected to anything larger or more important beyond the author's trite observations and apparent need to document the dating scene for young women at the places she worked. It reads like a badly or hastily written blog--or both--and needed a much heavier developmental edit before hitting the shelves.

Thank you to University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest reivew.

As someone who spent a good bit of the 90s in Eastern Europe, I enjoyed this book quite a lot, because it brought back memories of those times for me. At the same time, the naive, carefree and clueless attitude put my back up a bit. Innumerable young US Americans flooded into the region after the iron curtain came down, but to her credit the author was open to the adventure, and tried earnestly to come to grips with the post-Soviet experience. The only thing that really bothered me was the author's descriptions of her friendships - but maybe I'm of a generation that values friendships and relationships differently.

There's not much historical and political analysis here, but intriguing insights into being a stranger in a strange land, which make for an entertaining read.

An entertainingly gonzo memoir of some wild and harrowing times in the author's life. With the Ukraine so much in the news, and indeed the entire former Soviet Empire seemingly in the throes of an existential battle between liberalism and totalitarianism, this incredibly personal tale provides a keyhole view into recent history.

For deep historical and political analysis, look elsewhere. But for anyone not steeped in the recent history of the Ukraine, or anyone who wants to know how to navigate being a stranger in a strange land, this book is a great read.

A fantastic (and beautifully written) picture of life through the iron curtain. Cengel spent the early part of her career in some extraordinary places at a pivotal moment in history. Always readable, the characters and events that she encounters while working in Riga and Kiev are fascinating. In the front line of the new free press Cengel shares her experiences of the massive cultural changes in eastern europe though the late 80s and 90's. A really rewarding read.

This was a very interesting and intriguing book to read. I enjoyed it. I would definitely read more from this author in the future.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a powerful symbol of the more widespread collapse of communist regimes in Europe and the thawing of relations between East and West. Since then, countries which were once behind the so-called “Iron Curtain”, including the Baltic states, have become popular tourist destinations – apart from enthusiastic competitors in the Eurovision song contest. However, it sometimes seems as if their years under Soviet rule or influence have not yet been shrugged off, giving them a strange and exotic aura. Decades after its demise, the USSR and its satellite states still exert a morbid or (depending on one’s sympathies) nostalgic fascination. Perhaps, this explains, in part, the enthusiasm for HBO’s tv series Chernobyl.

If Eastern Europe still feels ‘different’ now, imagine how it was like in 1998. For Californian journalist Katya Cengel, then just a twenty-two-year old college graduate, it was, both literally and metaphorically, at the other end of the world. Far from disheartening her, this challenge drove her to seek a job with the Baltic Times in Latvia and then, once this first leg of her European adventure was finished, to move to the Ukraine.

From Chernobyl with Love contains the memoirs of these difficult but rewarding years. Admittedly, the choice of title seems suspiciously like an attempt to capitalise on the current interest in Chernobyl – the book has little to do with that nuclear plant or its notorious disaster, apart from the fact that one of Cengel’s assignments in Chernobyl led to her meeting with her husband, whose step-father happened to be an engineer at the plant at the time of the explosion.

Yet, even if it’s Chernobyl which makes you pick up this book, you will likely hold on to it for other reasons. For Cengel is an engaging raconteur. The story she presents to us is, primarily, a personal one. She reveals much about her relationship with her family, about the friends she made in Latvia and the Ukraine, about falling in (and out of) love with the man who would become her husband. In her account, Cengel tends to downplay her professional prowess and successes – she’s actually a prize-winning, globe-trotting journalist. Her skill shows in the way she uses her (and others’) personal stories to comment on wider social, political and cultural issues. Thus, her own struggles with illness give her account a human dimension, but also serve as eye-openers about the dismal health services in the Ukraine. Her relationship (and subsequent rift) with her ex-husband, also serve to highlight the difficulty of bridging the almost irreconcilable differences between distant cultures. Small details reveal the hardships faced in post-Communist countries – from the constant struggle with the cold in less-then-comfortable residences to the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of Government offices (importing orthodontic retainers involved getting a personal authorisation from the Health Minister) and the quasi-farcical political posturing (as revealed in Cengel’s chapter about her assignment in the separatist state of Transdienstria). Several chapters recount the build-up to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, as witnessed at first hand by the author.

From Chernobyl with Love is no history book. It’s something even more authentic – a personal account of some of the most tumultuous events in of the recent past.

Sadly, I just couldn’t get to grips with this book. I found the passages about her time living abroad fascinating but every time it veered towards romance, I found the writing childish. The flow of stories was also hard to follow, jumping rapidly from one anecdote to another in an erratic manner.

Katya Cengel's account of her time working as a journalist in the fragmenting chaos of post-Soviet Eastern Europe is an extremely valuable document of a time and situation that few in the west can fully comprehend. Her personal account avoids sweeping philosophical observations and analysis but within its detail of anxieties, misunderstandings and shared joy she gives a colourful insight of how lives fought to rassert and reset themselves under new regimes, or lack of them. The insidious fallout from Chernobyl plays an looming role in her story mirroring the lingering tentacles of surveillance and control of the failing state. As the illustrations suggest the youthful and enthusiastic Cengel seems to smile her way through every adversity and finds herself in a position to observe and report on the realities of the situation in a very personal way. It may not be reportage in the tradition of Orwell but her story is valuable in its singularity and focus.

As someone who majored in Russian studies and has spent considerable time in several countries of the former USSR, I loved this book. Like Elliott Holt and Elif Batuman, Katya Cengel can articulate the bewildering post-Soviet experience for Americans, and the way other Americans are endlessly baffled by your choice to study, live, and work in this culture. Cengel has crafted a work that, I think, will appeal to many readers, even those who may not have been very familiar with Latvia or Ukraine.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and inbiased review.
To be honest this is not really my typical sort of read, but as someone of a certain age to have lived through the 80's & 90s and the break up of the old USSR this subject matter was of interest.
Loved the bravery of a young American woman, Kaya Cengel, heading off to the old Russian states to work as a reporter even though she couldn't speak the language.
Thoroughly enjoyed the story she told and remembered a number of the events, obviously not least of which being the events and aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster itself.
No hesitation in recommending.

Katya Cengel found herself at a strange crossroads when leaving college. She needed to find experience to go work for a prominent newspaper, but she was looking for adventure. With the Berlin Wall coming down and cries for democracy in Eastern Europe at the time, the former U.S.S.R. was not exactly the place one would expect a young Californian to go willingly. The book From Chernobyl with Love covers Katya's years working in Latvia and the city of Kyiv. From going to the site of the poorly covered-up Chernobyl disaster site, living in an Eastern Bloc apartment, and the pretty terrifying world of medicine in the Ukraine, Katya learned a great deal of how to navigate a world where she barely spoke the language.

From Chernobyl With Love is not just a personal memoir, but also a look at what happens to people when they've undergone multiple regime changes, civil war, and starvation. Many people in Eastern Europe have experienced things folks in America are only learning about.  The book is fascinating and filled with moments where one wonders what they would have done in Katya's place. A great deal of her personal stories have to do with meeting her fiance and her friends that helped her navigate Latvia and the Ukraine.  

From Chernobyl With Love is available from the University of Nebraska Press November 1, 2019.

As someone who currently lives in a foreign country I really enjoy reading about the experiences of others when they move outside of the United States. I found Katya's story to be really inspirational and brave. She set out, before even completing her college degree, to Latvia. That certainly isn't one of the glamorous locations that you think of when you consider journalists traveling the world. It was really interesting to learn about her experiences in the former Soviet Union. I really enjoyed Katya's storytelling abilities and enjoyed the experiences she shared!

I enjoyed reading about Katya's experience of living in post Soviet Eastern Europe and was in awe of how brave she was to go there in the first place. However I found it a bit of an odd read. It was like she was just writing down things when they came into her mind which I found very confusing! For example one minute she was describing visiting a journalist in hospital and then she was describing how she was now in hospital for her own health, with not even a linking sentence! I had to re-read it a couple of times before I understood what was going on! Just writing 'and the next time I was in a hospital it was for my own health' or something along those lines would've helped. This sort of thing happened a few times throughout the book, to the point where I nearly have up, but the experiences she personally lived through, and those of her residents and friends, were really interesting so plough on if you can!

an amazing read.

I have always loved Chernobyl and seeing this journalist take on a challenge is particularly well done. I have always had a bit of an interest in Chernobyl and this book just makes me want to keep looking more into it.

I will be looking to buy this when it comes out as I think it is something I will keep reading.

thank you, NetGalley and everyone else concerned for letting me read this title early.

I thought of something else, I enjoyed only 11% of the book but it seemed different than my expectation after seeing the tv series with Chernobyl :)

From the beaches of California to the former Soviet Union. Journalist Katya Cengel wants a job with a difference.
She was involved in the grime and petty crime that came from the dissolution of such a massive country. Why did she stay and suffer such illness, and harshness ? Why did she develop such a complicated relationship with a man.
Even collecting a parcel sent from her mother becomes a mass of red tape and attempted bribery and all it contained was over the counter medication and a retainer. Why did she stay so long, I have no idea. Is a well written account of history made and remade with a brush against Chernobyl. . I continued to read as I felt the chill of the unheated concrete apartments and the feel of unwashed linen, I am a soft southern soul and would have left within days of arriving. Kaya is made of sterner stuff.

Its always interesting to read about the experiences of those who have lived and worked in a different country to their own. When the two countries being written about happen to have recently gained independence status after the collapse of the Soviet Union then those experiences become even more of interest. Katya Cengel's story takes place in Latvia and the Ukraine in the late 1990's and early 2000's where she was working as a rather poorly paid journalist. This was a time of economic, political and social upheaval which are referenced in the book. There was no carefully thought out transition here when the Soviet Union broke up. One minute there was a planned economy with guaranteed housing, employment and social structures and the next minute it was all gone.

We learn of the deep division between the Latvians and Ukrainians on one side and the now fearful Russian community on the other. One side nationalistic, anti Soviet and western looking and the other looking eastward and fondly on the previous setup. This difference being further exacerbated by language and religion. But it is the day to day experiences that I found most fascinating. Whether it was being a passenger on an overnight train or staying in a Ukrainian hospital (not the most pleasurable of experiences) and trying to collect a medical parcel from the USA would turn into a kafkaesque nightmare almost leading to imprisonment.

This is a remarkably honest account by the author as we learn of her troubled upbringing and disastrous marriage to a Ukrainian photographer whom she meets at work. For Ukraine the misery continues and it remains a festering sore that threatens European peace and stability. If you are looking to gain an extra insight into this troubled land then this is well worth a read.