This involved chronical of generations of a Russian family encompasses the universality of heritage, love, and struggle. There was a lot of minute details I didn't understand with Russian politics, history, and literature, but I got the gist. I wished there was more celebration of the beauty of womanhood rather than primarily focusing on tragedy, but it is a Russian novel after all. Some characters had more arc than others, and I cared more about certain storylines. I wish we got more from Marusya's perspective especially, but some of the theater stuff for Nora was easy to skim.