It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read Gary Shteyngart, but thoughts of Absurdistan still make me chuckle nearly two decades later. While that filthy funny novel followed the adventures of Misha Vainberg, the 325-pound son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia, Vera, or Faith (Random House 2025) gives us ten-year-old Vera – a Russian, Jewish, Korean bundle of anxiety and facts. While she’s less raunchy than Misha, she is just as memorable.
After overhearing a conversation between her dad and Anne Mom, Vera believes that her Mom Mom has cancer and is dying. She becomes determined to meet her before she dies. With her classmate, a girl Vera wants desperately to be her friend, an automated car named “Stella,” and a sentient AI chessboard named Kaspie, she sets out to find her real mother.
There’s also the domestic struggle between her father and stepmother, the “March of the Hated (MOTH) and the Five-Three movement (a political movement claiming an unequal voice is equitable and white folks should have more of a say), a school debate where Vera is pro Five-Three, her younger half-brother Dylan, a blonde pest who like to show off his penis, and the possibility her father is a traitor to his country and his own half-Korean daughter. Let’s just say, Vera has A LOT of her plate.
Vera, or Faith is a quick, one-sitting read that’s full of heart, humor and substance. While I didn’t love it as much as Absurdistan, it’s still a fun read. (One of my favorite parts is that Vera’s dad is a “manfluencer” for expensive pens.)
A Girl Named Tommi 