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.

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.

From Chernobyl with Love by Katya Cengel

Katya is an American journalist who lived in Latvia and later Ukraine starting in the 1990s. She is an intrepid traveler and adventurer who allows her readers to join her from their own comfy homes as she vividly shares tales of her work, dating and the difficulties of her life abroad.

This memoir will have you kissing ground where you live, grateful that you are not living in a former Soviet country.Doing without luxuries is a given since even basics like running water, heat and electricity are in often in doubt. Why she stays is beyond my understanding, though a romantic relationship plays a part.

This story is an easy read that will capture the interest of those who dream of living and working in a country very unlike their own. Katya’s travels for a good story, even to still-toxic Chernobyl, will leave you shaking your head in wonder.

My sincere thanks to #NetGalley and #UniversityofNebraskaPress/PotomacBooks for an ARC for this review.