Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

[Leah]

Twenty five year old Daria has finally managed to find a well-paid job in Odessa after months of searching. Prices in Odessa are rising whereas employment is falling so as soon as Daria hears about the job, working for a shipping company, she does whatever it takes to get herself the job. ‘Whatever it takes’ turns out to be sleeping with the boss, Mr Harmon. To distract him from pursuing her, Daria introduces him to her friend Olga which soon turns out to be a big mistake and Olga ends up making Daria’s life at Algonaut hell. Daria finds herself searching for a second job and ends up at Soviet Unions, a match-making/mail-order bride-type business and after matching up many Odessans with American men, Daria finds herself yearning after the American dream for herself...

Moonlight In Odessa was released in February 2010 but it never appeared on my radar at all. If I had to class it in any genre, it would have to be ‘chick lit’ because it doesn’t appear to fall anywhere else but when I was looking for new book releases, this one never appeared. In fact, the first I knew of Moonlight In Odessa was when it made the shortlist for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. Moonlight In Odessa won the title which is a fairly prestigious one in the world of chick lit/comedy romance and after we wrote a post congratulating Janet, she emailed us to say thank you and offered me the chance to read the book. I wasn’t totally sure it was my kind of thing but I couldn’t say no simply because my curiosity overtook me due to the fact it won the Melissa Nathan award!

Moonlight In Odessa is one of the most refreshing and unique books I have come across in a while. I’m not usually one for books set in places I’ve never heard of, and Odessa is one of those places, but despite the bleakness that appears to be rife in Odessa, the fictional version anyway, with money worries, job worries, the lack of telephone communications, it sounds like an absolutely wonderful city. Despite everything Daria experiences, she speaks of such love for where she comes from, constantly reminding us that Odessa has the “third most beautiful Opera House in the world”. So despite what Daria says about Odessans being a pessimistic bunch, I don’t believe that for one minute. If the troubles in Odessa were to happen, say, in England, they wouldn’t talk of an Opera House being the third most beautiful in the world and they wouldn’t see the positive side to Odessa and the good things that happen.

Daria is probably one of my favourite female characters I’ve ever come across. She’s very headstrong and fairly independent and after getting herself a job at the shipping company, ends up having to put up with her boss Mr Harmon’s advances for “six months, three weeks, and two days” and manages to deflect him beautifully by asking her friend Olga to help. It soon goes awry for Daria and she finds herself hunting out a second job, finding employment at Soviet Unions a mail-order bride company, and begins finding Odessan girls American husbands. That does help to highlight the fact Daria is still single – and considered over the hill – at twenty-five and she soon begins to yearn from a life away from Odessa, a life where she can be free and not have to worry about money or anything. I could totally identify with Daria’s plight; who doesn’t want to live the American dream? The American dream is painted in such a way that not only did I want Daria to be able to live it, but I wanted her to take me with her, too!

The book is split into two parts and the first part of the book is definitely faster-paced than the second. Daria goes through a big life change in the second part of the book and that becomes evident in her character and personality. She goes from being headstrong and confident to questioning everything she has ever known. A lot happens in the first part of the book, from Daria’s pesky boss, to her so-called friend Olga to Daria being wooed by a gangster called Vlad so the drop off of pace in the second half was unfortunate but it made sense because of how Daria’s life had changed. All of the characters that make up Moonlight In Odessa were fully fleshed out and became very real to me. I think the fact I loved Daria is evident, and I wish there were more characters like her floating around in books! A character who made a real impression on me though was Daria’s boss Mr Harmon (or David, if you prefer). He’s completely unpleasant for a long while to Daria but there was a bit of an about-turn when he realised what an idiot he had been a I felt myself changing toward my first impressions of him. Another character I absolutely adored was Daria’s grandmother Boba. She was so so lovely, and all she wanted was for her grand-daughter to have a better life. The final character I must mention is Vlad, and I don’t really know what I made of him, not really!

I learned a lot while reading Moonlight In Odessa, mainly what it’s like to live in Odessa, and to a certain extent, Ukraine. It’s easy to be blinkered when you live such a lovely life as I’m sure I do and compared to what Daria faces my life is a piece of cake. Because of my lack of knowledge about Odessa, I’m not completely sure if everything in the book is true but either way it certainly opened my eyes, particularly about mail-order brides. I’ve read stories in the news about mail-order brides but never anything so in depth and it’s hard to know who is playing who: the Odessan girls desperate to escape Odessa or the American men looking for a beautiful bride to Lord it over. Janet Skeslien Charles has written a fantastic novel, one that should appeal to many. It’s well-written, it has romantic and comedy moments and it has a really really great female lead character in Daria. Hopefully the winning of the Melissa Nathan Award will make more people pick up this fantastic book because it deserves every award it wins and I can’t wait for more books by Janet!