Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2024 #Potluck – Book Review by Kay Castaneda for Finding Katya: How I Quit Everything to Backpack the Former Soviet States by Katie R. Aune

Welcome to the series of Posts from Your Archives and I will be sharing posts from the SECOND six months of 2023 from your archives.

If you wish to be included the information is at the the end of the following post which is from the previous series, and shows you what it will look like.

This is the first post from author Kay Castaneda and is her review for an intriguing sounding memoir by Katie R. Aune

Book Review for Finding Katya: How I Quit Everything to Backpack the Former Soviet States

This is the memoir of Katie R. Aune, who spent a year backpacking in Russia and the former Soviet Union republics. Katie is a lawyer with a high-paying job and friends but she leaves it all behind to satisfy her desire to travel. The wanderlust she feels pushes her to meticulously plan out nearly every detail of the trip from flight schedules, housing, even down to her budget for food. Katie has always dreamed of visiting Russia since she was young. She understands the Russian language because she majored in Russian Studies in college. She has planned this trip for years and knows the history of the country and customs. Katie arranges accomodations in various homes by enrolling in an overseas volunteer organization to teach English. She will sleep in people’s houses in exchange for room and board and teaching English to adults.

Katie experiences a rough awakening in her first residency at a couple’s home in Saint Petersburg. The woman wrote Katie that she had two teens but when she arrives, Katie finds five children. Outdoor showers are common in Russia which means an hour-long wait until the boiler heats the water. Katie is used to the comforts of her Chicago condominum, so she’s shocked by the toilet, which is essentially a wooden shed with a seatless toilet, a veritable hole in the ground. Strange food does not agree with Katie due to her digestive condition so she lives on candy bars until she finds food she can eat. Thin blankets, unheated rooms and broken window glass that lets in rain and cold, further greet Katie in her first month homesteading. That’s not what the volunteer organization advertised on their website when Katie signed up. If she has to stay in a hotel, that will make a dent in her finances and possibly cut her dream trip short. But Katie decides she will endure whatever cultural surprises she encounters in the next year.

The book is written in a diary format where Katie tells the story of her experiences in each place she visits. Her dream of going to Asia comes true as she travels to each of the “stans” as the former Soviet republics are named by travelers. She visits Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and more until she crosses all those countries off her wish list. Katie also writes about what happened in Mongolia and Siberia. Strange people, cultures and unfamiliar customs both delight and shock Katie. She even has a romantic relationship and makes friends.

I wanted to read Finding Katya because the topic intrigued me. Like Katie, I traveled alone to a foreign country. Lithuania is a Central European country where I didn’t know anyone. The language is very strange. Their alphabet is Cyrillic, not our familiar ABC alphabet. I couldn’t make out anything on street signs or menus. I was part of a month-long writing workshop so I had daily contact with a few people. When Katie feels alone and second-guesses her decision to travel alone, I felt sympathy for her since I had a similar episode.

I loved reading about her meeting new people. Her admission that she’s an introvert may confuse readers. How could an introvert go on a journey to Europe and Asia alone? Introverts have a gift of usually being comfortable with themselves. Traveling solo requires the ability to spend long periods of time alone with no companion or someone to share experiences. Katie had no one as a guide or protector on this journey, only herself. She communicated with people everywhere she went, yet she alone was responsible for her own self-care and to be her own travel guide.

I thought it was significant how Katie mentioned that others called her Katya. They renamed her and she kept the name. Making decisions of where to go next, the type of transportation to use, and who to speak to or not, showed her independence and inner strèngth. The episode where Katie finds herself in a sleeper car on a train with drunk passengers was amusing. Nothing bad happened to her. Her first instinct was to try to ignore them. Instead, she reached out to the travelers and accepted their invitation to share a drink and a bit of dancing. That will be something special to talk about in the future. Not everyone gets to take a train ride across Russia and Asia.

I liked the descriptions of historic places and the geography of each country. Her portrayals of people and their customs made the book interesting. I was able to visualize the characters she met. The time she spent with a family in Tajikistan was amazing. She taught them English and in turn they welcomed her. She described the family so well and told about her feelings for them, that I felt like I was there with them. Katie used games to teach them English and accepted a gift of a hand-sewn dress the young girls made for her. When she had to leave, I felt like I was leaving also.

Katie writes about her bad experiences, not just the happy and good times. When she writes about meeting a man who she dates for awhile, it shows how she was open to new social relationships. Even when their relationship ends, Katie doesn’t give up and run home to the United States. She continues on her journey. I’m glad I had the chance to read Katie’s story.

Finding Katya is a wonderful book. 5 Stars!

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon UK –  And: Amazon US – Twitter:  @Katieaune – Instagram: Katie Aune – Facebook: Katie Aune – Linkedin: Katie Aune

©Kay Castaneda 2023

My thanks to Kay for inviting me to share posts from her archives and I know she would be delighted to receive your comments.

About Kay Castaneda

Kay Castaneda is retired from a career as a college writing instructor and special education tutor. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in English at Indiana University. Her publications include poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction in literary journals plus articles about education for reference books. Kay attended writing seminars in Lithuania, Scotland, and Mexico. She dreams of going camping in Alaska someday and visiting Israel. Her hobbies include reading, especially Russian novels, biographies, watching crime shows on TV and genealogy. Kay’s talents include daydreaming, inventing characters for future writing and baking.

She published a novel based on her experiences growing up in the Midwest, Emmie of Indianapolis. She is currently researching the history of Ireland for a novel based on her ancestors. Her work in progress is a mystery novel with an amateur female sleuth. Future plans include teaching online writing classes plus creating her home art studio. Her husband says that she is addicted to reading and this is true. She loves to eat at Mom and Pop diners and browse in antique stores and flea markets. Kay lives in Indiana with her husband Tony, son Richard and dog Buddy.

About Emmie of Indianapolis

In 1963, a young teenage girl moves with her mother and sisters from the suburbs to the downtown of a Midwestern city after her parents get a divorce. Emmie, a naïve, curious and intelligent girl, wants the security of her suburban life but has always dreamed of adventure in faraway places. She must take risks, meet new people and become independent. The change is difficult for all because of her mother’s alcoholism and lack of a steady income. When Emmie’s mother takes a job, she cares for her sisters at night. In her new neighborhood, Emmie meets people from different cultures who are both good and evil. She defends her sisters and herself each day by confronting the evil, thus awakening her courage and inner strength. But she never gives up.

One of the reviews for the book

Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars When I think of Indianapolis I now also think of Emmie.  Reviewed in the United States

When Henry James wrote “What Maisie Knew” all those years ago, he did a couple of things that were especially clever. He produced prose that was entirely suited to the story of a young child, and he merged Maisie’s world with his authorship. James’ “What Maisie Knew” is a child’s take on the inequities of adult life. And Maisie, as she grows, goes from borrowing adult words, without necessarily understanding them, to being able to comprehend the adult world and it effects on her. He also used prose entirely suitable for a child-centric story; prose different from his adult-centric stories. At least that’s what I made of James.

“Emmie of Indianapolis” by Kay Castaneda shares some similarities with “Maisie,” in that like James, Castaneda, has successfully produced a child’s story. (Cf an adult telling a story about a child – as is the case with most YA fiction.) The charm of Emmie’s year is that she tells us about it, and she tells us as a child would. It is this charm, in spite of some troublesome episodes in Emmie’s year, that made the story such a pleasure to read.

Too many YA authors feel the need to show their adult self in the narrative, where as Castaneda successfully avoids that pit fall. “Emmie of Indianapolis” reads as if Emmie is speaking directly to us, simply, succinctly, sometimes without understanding, and other times with deep understanding; but more often than not a sense of wonder. From time to time Emmie does use words from the adult world, and Castaneda’s prose choices makes it clear that Emmie uses them with a child’s appreciation – as borrowed words, rather than as her own.

With this approach Castaneda tells a story of the essentials of friendship; against the inequities that adults, through their needs and intolerances, visit upon the lives of children. And in spite of those inequities, and in spite of the failings all too present in Emmie’s world, the story is a warm one. A story, also, that makes it now impossible to think of Indianapolis without Emmie in it. I should finish by saying that I enjoyed the story as a story for adults, on adults terms, and I think that it stands in its own right as narrative fiction – rather than as a story reliant on being genre pigeon holed as Young Adult. 

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK – Website: Bookplaces – Facebook: Kay Castaneda – Twitter: @KCastanedauthor

How to feature in the series?

• All I need you to do is give me permission to dive in to your archives and find two posts to share here on Smorgasbord either by leaving a note in the comments or by emailing me. (sally.cronin@moyhill.com)
• Rather than a set topic, I will select posts at random of general interest across a number of subjects from the last six months of 2023. (it is helpful if you have a link to your archives in your sidebar by month)
• As I will be promoting your books as part of the post along with all your information and links so I will not be sharing direct marketing or self- promotional posts in the series.
• If you are an author I am sure you will have a page on your blog with the details, and an ‘about page’ with your profile and social media links (always a good idea anyway). I will get everything that I need.
• As a blogger I would assume that you have an ‘about page’ a profile photo and your links to social media.
• Copyright is yours and I will ©Your name on every post… and you will be named as the author in the URL and subject line.
• Previous participants are very welcome to take part again.
• Each post is reformatted for my blog and I don’t cut and paste, this means it might look different from your own post especially if you are using the block editor

N.B – To get the maximum benefit from your archive posts, the only thing I ask is that you respond to comments individually and share on your own social media.. thank you.