To be honest, this was one of the worst books of 2020 that I read. The story made little sense, it was rushed and the characters had no substance to them. The father completely switched gears a quarter into the book, the mom was so dismissive and the boys were boring. The sexual scenes were unnecessary and the ending made absolutely no sense. Absolutely none.

Emma and Gregory, an affluent middle-class couple, decide to adopt after Emma’s own pregnancy ends in tragedy. Through an international adoption agency they are offered twin boys from Russia and set off in some trepidation, but also in hope for a happy family future together, to collect the babies. But this is no happy-ever-after fairy tale adoption. Right from the outset it is obvious something is not quite right about the boys and a sense of dread and horror builds as the narrative progresses. A psychological thriller and a searing exploration of parenthood and child-rearing, I was gripped throughout and found the book convincing and very frightening. A great read.

Translation issues aside - this book is scarrrryyyyy. International adoption and childhood trauma. I think if the translation could be worked out, this would be terrifying and on many best seller lists.

Thanks to NetGAlley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you to the publisher for this advanced reading copy. This book has a very interesting premise. French Canadians Emma and Gregory go to Russia to adopt twin baby boys from an orphanage and take them back to Toronto to live. From the moment this book started I knew that it would pack a punch as it was a short novel that was about a very sensitive subject (international adoption).

I read this book in a day as I was compelled to keep going to find out what was going to happening next in these characters lives. I found some of the scenes made me really uneasy and sometimes I wanted more explanation rather then to be rushed through. I do have to say that the ending was quite good and the book has me guessing throughout.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy. I was very excited to read this book however I felt that it somewhat missed the mark for me. Whilst it is written well, the plot moves very quickly and I found the ending to be underwhelming. The characters are well written however, and it is a unique book. It may be one for other readers

I greatly enjoyed this book, thank you for giving me a preview copy. The plot was interesting and fast paced and I sympathised with the characters. This is the first novel I have read by this author but I hope it will not be the last!

It’s a familiar story in the North American psyche, a culture of people who are perhaps too eager to adopt, snatching up the first child that becomes available, putting full trust in their adoption agency with reckless blindness towards the traumatic and toxic conditions of those unregulated orphanages: a bright-eyed couple adopts a child from Russia only to find that they suffer from reactive attachment disorder (read: a childhood-trauma-induced lack of empathy that exhibits similarly to sociopathy).

In this case of Toronto-based French-Canadians Emma and Gregory, their twins Daniil and Vanya, adopted from Russia at 15 months old, quickly exhibit signs that something isn’t quite right. In their desperation to build a happy family following the traumatic loss of a pregnancy, the couple attributes the twins oddities to the jarring shift in culture and to their sudden, ill-prepared thrust into parenthood.

Through a fast-paced 256 pages, readers experience Emma’s desperation, loneliness, and inevitable self-blame punctuated with brief, but oddly placed, narratives from a pubescent Daniil and Vanya that are eerily narrated from a first-person-plural perspective: “Our voice is sharp, with ridiculous accents. We’ve always hated it.” Their morphed voice further emphasizes to what extent the boys have cultivated an obsessive brotherly identity that shuns not only their parents but also their peers.

Though the writing is largely clunky and peppered with artificial dialogue (perhaps the result of an unsatisfactory translation), its daring venture into vulgarity and the impermissible topics of sadistic and sexual violence of minors urges the plot forward in an eager search for resolution and retribution. While the abrupt ending may not provide the closure sought (it certainly didn’t in my case), it did raise critical questions regarding the social responsibility of adoptive parents and the lasting, interpersonal effects of childhood trauma.

Daniil and Vanya is a book that can be read quickly, that has high shock value, and that will keep you thinking for a couple of days in its wake, but it’s far from life-changing and all too forgettable.

Wow - this book had some serious potential, but it felt squandered by a clunky translation and an overall sense that the author was trying to rush to "shock" points. Not for me.