Vaclav and Lena review - Haley Tanner | Books | EW.com

This debut starts off cute but slight, with 10-year-olds Vaclav and Lena exploring a proto-romance to the odor of borscht and the lilt of mangled syntax in Russian-immigrant Brooklyn. Then Lena suddenly leaves under murky circumstances and the book heads for something darker and deeper, especially after the story jumps forward seven years and the couple reunite to grapple with the past and, possibly, feel their way toward a future. Vaclav and especially Lena never quite cohere into threedimensional characters, but Tanner is a gifted-enough storyteller to bring some real emotional heft to Vaclav & Lena. B+

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