Mikee (ReadWithMikee)'s Reviews > The Summer Garden

❝He is thinking of sailboats in distant oceans, the desert from dimmest childhood, the ghost of fortune, the girl on the bench. When he saw her, he saw something new. He saw it because he wanted to see it, because he wanted to change his life. He stepped off the curb and out of the deadfall. To cross the street. To follow her. And she will give your life meaning, she will save you. Yes, yes—to cross.

'We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…' Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.❞

I'm a little torn on how I should rate his book. Majority of the book was a solid 4 stars but once we got towards the end, sadly, the story felt way too dragged on. Alexander and Tatiana's story should've ended a LONG time ago. After a certain point in The Summer Garden, after what Alexander did, I was ready to put the book down once and for all. But I binge read and stuck around for three books, I needed Alexander and Tatiana's happy ending like I needed air.

Going into this book, I knew Alexander and Tatiana we're going to have problems with their marriage. I just never thought that things would get so ugly. For majority of the book, their ups and their downs were understandable. Alexander and Tatiana were damaged after everything they went through during the war. Everywhere they looked they saw Leningrad. They saw death and loss. They saw Lazarevo. They saw June 22, 1941. Alexander had been a soldier for all of his life. He didn't know how to be anything else. They were separated longer than they've even been married. Slowly, but surely, they began to recover. They were finally starting to be the happy family that I was desperately waiting for them to be. Things weren't always pretty but they were so in love and so happy with very little. Until one Friday night.

Tatiana has always been stubborn since the very first page of The Bronze Horseman. But I've never been this infuriated with her until The Summer Garden. Alexander included. I understood why Tatiana wanted to keep working. In a time where women were expected to stay home and be a housewife, I think even I would defy the norm and go to work. But Tatiana took it a bit too far. She loved her work and loved helping other people all her life but even I felt as if she put her job before her family. She did her duties cooking and cleaning but she was still absent from her husband and son's lives. At that point, I wasn't surprised that Alexander went out and sought attention from other women, but even he took it too far as well. After that Friday night... After Carmen... Cheating is an all-time deal breaker for me. I was prepared for fights. Yelling. Even pushing or shoving. We were expected to forgive and forget, but I couldn't do that. Cheating taints and corrupts a relationship, most especially a marriage. There's no going back from that no matter how much I wish I could.

After the cheating incident, I felt like the story just went downhill but picked back up in the last few pages of the book. Everything in between was dreadfully boring. I didn't really care for the rescue mission or conversations about SDI so I skimmed pretty much the last part of the book. I did love seeing everybody grow up and grow old and the last few chapters were heartwarming and bittersweet but I just wanted to conclude Alexander and Tatiana's story already. After so many years, I just want that happy ending... And alas I finally got it. I'm still bawling my eyes out just writing this review. I honestly don't know how I'll be able to move on a read anything else that isn't this series. It's taken over my whole life and yet it's only been 3-4 days!

The Bronze Horseman became my favorite book of all time. I was told that the events in the first book were historically inaccurate and although that disappoints me a bit, I was still able to love The Bronze Horseman as a romance. For me, Alexander and Tatiana's story was truly the greatest love story ever told. I lost, I broke, I cried, I triumphed, I loved, I grew, I lived... A life beyond my own all because of these two characters. My soul felt like it aged fifty years and more as I brought The Summer Garden to a close. Reading this trilogy has touched my heart in ways I never expected it would and no matter how bad or ugly things got in the end, I am truly grateful that The Bronze Horseman found its way into my life. Thank you Paullina Simons for taking us on this life-changing journey.