Name: Tash Hearts Tolstoy
Rating: 3.885714285714286 (35 reviews)
ISBN: 9781481489331

Kathryn Ormsbee

Fame and success come at a cost for Natasha "Tash" Zelenka when she creates the web series "Unhappy Families," a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina--written by Tash's eternal love Leo Tolstoy.

Tash Hearts Tolstoy

Jamieson

“I guess I mean I always feel like I’m . . . waiting. Waiting until I get older so people will finally take me seriously and I can do what I want.”


Tash Hearts Tolstoy follows Tash, who, as the title suggests, loves Tolstoy. When the modern adaptation of Anna Karenina her and her best friend Jack are making for youtube goes semi-viral overnight and then is nominated for an award, Tash is suddenly thrust into the fandom spotlight.

This is a YA contemporary with almost everything I love in YA contemporaries!
 ➩ friends making art on the internet
➩ the internet playing a large role in the characters lives
➩ a queer main character
➩ complex family and friend drama
➩ references to classics and old-timey stuff 
➩ nerds


This reminded me a lot of Fangirl, Eliza and Her Monsters and Radio Silence so if you like any of them you'll probably like this. For me it wasn't as great as Radio Silence, but I liked it more than Fangirl and about equal to Eliza and Her Monsters. 

Although this is about Unhappy Families, the series Tash makes with Jack, it's more about Tash's shifting relationships with her friends and family. Tash is also asexual and how this affects her life and relationships, especially her budding relationship with a fellow vlogger, plays a large role in this. 

The family and friend aspects are much the same to any other YA contemporary I've read. Aspects were predictable and the resolutions weren't special to me. But the inclusion of asexual representation and the strong focus of that rep, as well as the internet as a central plot point and all the Leo Tolstoy references elevated this a little for me. I ended up enjoying it a lot and it isn't just the typical YA contemporary. Although it probably didn't hit me as hard as similar books like Radio Silence, this is still really enjoyable and well worth the pick up if you like books that deal with fandom culture, online fame, and fraught family/friend dynamics. Also if you're looking for more books with asexual main characters.

From the author of Lucky Few comes a “refreshing” (Booklist, starred review) teen novel about Internet fame, peer pressure, and remembering not to step on the little people on your way to the top! After a shout-out from one of the Internet’s superstar vloggers, Natasha “Tash” Zelenka suddenly finds herself and her obscure, amateur web series, Unhappy Families, thrust in the limelight: She’s gone viral. Her show is a modern adaption of Anna Karenina—written by Tash’s literary love Count Lev Nikolayevich “Leo” Tolstoy. Tash is a fan of the 40,000 new subscribers, their gushing tweets, and flashy Tumblr gifs. Not so much the pressure to deliver the best web series ever. And when Unhappy Families is nominated for a Golden Tuba award, Tash’s cyber-flirtation with a fellow award nominee suddenly has the potential to become something IRL—if she can figure out how to tell said crush that she’s romantic asexual. Tash wants to enjoy her newfound fame, but will she lose her friends in her rise to the top? What would Tolstoy do?

Ary Dias 

Anna Cashman

I wouldn’t say this was amazing or inspiring or any superlative BUT it made me feel things. Like it might be a comfort book that I go back to multiple times. I feel like I’m a mix of Tash and Jack, and I love Paul. Also some pretty good Ace rep, and even if you’re not ace I’d recommend reading it just for the insight please and thank you

jess

On a whole, I enjoyed Tash Hearts Tolstoy a LOT. 

First of all, I can relate to Tash very, very deeply, because I, too, love a classical author to death and have, on multiple occasions, called him my buddy. (He was mentioned in the book. I screamed a bit. The author is Victor Hugo, by the way. I own four copies of Les Miserables.) I've never read Anna Karenina - the only Tolstoy I've had exposure to is the small stretch of War and Peace covered in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, but Kathryn Ormsbee does a really good job of getting the important details out there. For such a long, complex book, I was minimally confused. The webseries thing was pretty cool, though I'm not really a webseries person (I like watching gaming on YouTube), so I didn't quite understand all of that and wasn't as into it as I was into the characters and their lives. 

I loved all the characters. They were decently complex, but Tash really was the highlight. I loved her narration, her personality, her character development. She grew a lot during the course of the novel, and yes, she has done some selfish and embarrassing things, but she's a teenage girl who is learning to find herself. I found her really cute and endearing, honestly. I loved her chemistry with Paul as well. I was totally rooting for them. (view spoiler)[I kind of thought that Thom would end up being an asshole because he seemed too good to be true, and guess what, he was. (hide spoiler)] I did not like Jack quite as much as I did most of the other characters - she seemed to be rooted in scary tough girl - but I related to her repressing her emotions about her dad getting cancer, because yeah, same. There was a lot packed into the novel, but it never felt like too much. I wish I saw more of Tash and Klaudie's relationship, though. 

Another wonderful thing: the ace rep! THE ASEXUAL REP, GUYS. This is the first time I've ever seen a character say, out loud, that she is asexual. It was so well written and I am so happy. Ormsbee does a great job of explaining asexuality (and by extention, aromanticism, since Tash is asexual and heteromatic) to readers who may not have heard of it before. The book is not an asexual book, though it takes up its fair share of plot and is a point of conflict - it was really well balanced. 

I think that this is an awesome addition to the YA LGBTQ+ canon and YA as a whole, and I am very happy with it.

Steph L 

If you are looking for a fun book with an ace lead I recommend this one! I just loved this book a lot, and I wish that it was talked about more. It was such a fun read, and yet also very emotional at times!

Flavia Louise

Why do these books get me over and over again.
I see the recurring themes but in the end I loved this quite a lot.
4.25 stars

Carolina

AL FIN LEÍ ESTO Y AMIGOS. AMIGOS.
Tipo es fluff. O sea no porque es todo amor y corazones pero porque nada, toca temas de la vida pero no trata de ser súper profundo ni nada. Pero no sé, lo amé. Tash te amo sori que en mi cabeza sos Tasha.
Y la representación????' un mil. O sea. No sé no quiero ni describir en detalle porque no quiero spoilear, no es que es tan importante pero solo amé cómo está escrito. Nada, no sé, me encantó. Libro súper tranqui, súper recomendable si quieren un libro sobre adolescentes encontrando su lugar en la vida y toda la movida. Muy cute. Muy nice.

Luna

tw: cancer, death, unchallenged acephobia 


the good:

- the first half was really good. i felt a lot for the main character and loved the representation
- the web series aspect really brought out my closeted theater kid
- paul was super fun. most of the time. in the first half

the not so good:

- the ace representation definitely could’ve been handled better in the latter half. specifically, more “indirect” acephobia from the MC’s best friends goes completely unchallenged and everyone acts like she needs to apologize for her sexuality ... but somehow they act like that’s not acephobic. 
- thom being the love interest instead of paul (or anyone else) was really weird. the MC starts off by saying he makes her uncomfortable, and then she’s suddenly into him???

the bad:

- can we get a trigger warning for cancer PLEASE. it’s a serious theme throughout this (specifically prostate cancer, if anyone needs to know)
- the friends and family kind of suck. this is a thing i’ve seen in every YA contemporary, where the majority of the book just ends up being *messy* because the friends and family treat the MC like absolute shit, and it’s not cute. the relationships were so unhealthy, and everyone turning on the MC because she treated them badly (sometimes she wasn’t great, sometimes she straight up didn’t do anything wrong) when they always treat her even worse? gross. 



overall, i just wish this was less messy and dramatic. i don’t want to have unhealthy relationships thrown at me and be expected to support them. but the representation was pretty wholesome and hopeful for the most part, so i really appreciate that.

Tash Hearts Tolstoy

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