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How to Get into the Twin Palms
How To Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of Anya, a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, who struggles between retaining her parents' Polish culture and trying to assimilate into her adopted community. She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya's apartment. It is Anya's wish to gain entrance to this seemingly exclusive club.
How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, literally burning to the ground.
How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, literally burning to the ground.
192 pages, Paperback
First published July 10, 2012
71 people are currently reading
2922 people want to read
About the author
Karolina Waclawiak
5 books101 followersKarolina Waclawiak is the author of the critically acclaimed novels How to Get Into the Twin Palms and THE INVADERS.
Her third novel, Life Events, will be published by FSG on May 19, 2020.
AWOL, a feature she co-wrote with Deb Shoval, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and has received praise from The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Marie Claire, and more.
Formerly an editor at the Believer, she is now the Executive Editor, Culture at BuzzFeed News.
Karolina received her BFA in Screenwriting from USC and her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, VQR, the Believer, Hazlitt, and other publications.
www.karolinawaclawiak.com
Her third novel, Life Events, will be published by FSG on May 19, 2020.
AWOL, a feature she co-wrote with Deb Shoval, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and has received praise from The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Marie Claire, and more.
Formerly an editor at the Believer, she is now the Executive Editor, Culture at BuzzFeed News.
Karolina received her BFA in Screenwriting from USC and her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, VQR, the Believer, Hazlitt, and other publications.
www.karolinawaclawiak.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
September 9, 2012
I'm not sure whether the brilliant cover art and the gorgeous rough cut pages biased me towards this book. I recently read The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson and questioned whether I would have liked it if someone other than Winterson had written it. Would I have enjoyed this book if it had grotesque cover art and was typeset in an ugly font? Maybe not as much.
Books this well designed makes me realise how important it is to ... design books this well. I liked closing it and enjoying the cover, running my fingers along the pages. As for the content, I really have no idea what I think. In general, I fucking loved it. I was enraptured by the descriptions of the minutiae of Anya/Anka/Zosia's life. To think that I read a whole book of descriptions of hair collecting in drain holes, home hair dye jobs, Polish food and ash covered furniture without it becoming tedious shows that the author is a little bit brilliant. I think so anyway, though i could also understand if another reader hated it for the very things I loved.
Waclawiak created a mood with this novel, complete with tastes and temperature and grime. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me into her character's world. The tedium of her life. The loneliness. The bleary, lost desperation. One of those rare books where not much has to even happen for it to be an enjoyable read. The words are enough. The sentences, the atmosphere. You are pulled from one page to the next on a sense adventure; taste, touch, sight and smell. The silence of loneliness. It was like Banana Yoshimoto, but with a Polish flavour.
As for rating it? I'm basing it on several things. If I could go back in time and choose whether to spend an entire day dedicated to this book, would I again? Yes. Would I read more books by Waclawiak? Without a doubt. Would I trust Tuck's future book recommendations? Most definitely, in fact I'm ITCHING to see what else he can come up with.
As I sit and ruminate, the fonder I feel of it. I love books like that.
Books this well designed makes me realise how important it is to ... design books this well. I liked closing it and enjoying the cover, running my fingers along the pages. As for the content, I really have no idea what I think. In general, I fucking loved it. I was enraptured by the descriptions of the minutiae of Anya/Anka/Zosia's life. To think that I read a whole book of descriptions of hair collecting in drain holes, home hair dye jobs, Polish food and ash covered furniture without it becoming tedious shows that the author is a little bit brilliant. I think so anyway, though i could also understand if another reader hated it for the very things I loved.
Waclawiak created a mood with this novel, complete with tastes and temperature and grime. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me into her character's world. The tedium of her life. The loneliness. The bleary, lost desperation. One of those rare books where not much has to even happen for it to be an enjoyable read. The words are enough. The sentences, the atmosphere. You are pulled from one page to the next on a sense adventure; taste, touch, sight and smell. The silence of loneliness. It was like Banana Yoshimoto, but with a Polish flavour.
As for rating it? I'm basing it on several things. If I could go back in time and choose whether to spend an entire day dedicated to this book, would I again? Yes. Would I read more books by Waclawiak? Without a doubt. Would I trust Tuck's future book recommendations? Most definitely, in fact I'm ITCHING to see what else he can come up with.
As I sit and ruminate, the fonder I feel of it. I love books like that.
August 3, 2020
A lively short read--fast little chapters offering vignettes in the life of an unnamed first person character, daughter of Polish immigrants, living in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles, a center of Russian life in the city. She's a hard case, yearning for low life, scratching at the perimeter to find a place she belongs--not quite American enough, not quite Polish enough, not Russian but perhaps she can pass... obsessed with getting into the Russian nightclub around the corner, the Twin Palms, a place frequented by gangsters and cab drivers and their women. Such longing to be part of that cheap glitter and leather jacket world.
I loved the locations, places in LA I've never seen in a novel. The author's jaded appreciation shines through everywhere, in the description of the Fairfax area and its old lady shoppers and stores with fruit still sold from crates on tables, the Russian delis and drugstores where they sell medicine you see nowhere else, prosthetic limbs. Running the track at Fairfax High until she wants to vomit. I can even see the street she lives on--have parked there myself. There's the Hollywood Downtowner motel on East Hollywood Blvd., a downmarket oasis with ashes in the pool. She runs the bingo game at the Polish Church on West Adams, what great characters, especially a sexy old lady who shames her for not having a boyfriend. Her Russian cabbie crush--I won't say 'boyfriend' because this longed for relationship never really gets that far--who takes her to a cheap Polish restaurant that she understands all too well. And of course the Twin Palms.
Each of the tiny chapters has fantastic granular details, a fantasy selection of boxed hair colors to remake her Polish blonde into something dangerously exotic, the stained mattress, things pushed to the back of the freezer, the things the old ladies at bingo bring for luck, details from her life in Poland, things unique to her world--such a keen eye. A prickly immigrant story which follows none of the rules, as the character spirals down from strange obsession to darker obsession. The only difficulty here is that the story constructs one door (the obsession with the Twin Palms and having a Russian boyfriend) and walks through another (fire and a hitherto unseen destructiveness), which undermined the final effect.
Yet it's true to itself in its various parts, completely original, tough and lively and in full possession of the wit of the keen-eyed, funny and never sparing on the gross details of life.
I loved the locations, places in LA I've never seen in a novel. The author's jaded appreciation shines through everywhere, in the description of the Fairfax area and its old lady shoppers and stores with fruit still sold from crates on tables, the Russian delis and drugstores where they sell medicine you see nowhere else, prosthetic limbs. Running the track at Fairfax High until she wants to vomit. I can even see the street she lives on--have parked there myself. There's the Hollywood Downtowner motel on East Hollywood Blvd., a downmarket oasis with ashes in the pool. She runs the bingo game at the Polish Church on West Adams, what great characters, especially a sexy old lady who shames her for not having a boyfriend. Her Russian cabbie crush--I won't say 'boyfriend' because this longed for relationship never really gets that far--who takes her to a cheap Polish restaurant that she understands all too well. And of course the Twin Palms.
Each of the tiny chapters has fantastic granular details, a fantasy selection of boxed hair colors to remake her Polish blonde into something dangerously exotic, the stained mattress, things pushed to the back of the freezer, the things the old ladies at bingo bring for luck, details from her life in Poland, things unique to her world--such a keen eye. A prickly immigrant story which follows none of the rules, as the character spirals down from strange obsession to darker obsession. The only difficulty here is that the story constructs one door (the obsession with the Twin Palms and having a Russian boyfriend) and walks through another (fire and a hitherto unseen destructiveness), which undermined the final effect.
Yet it's true to itself in its various parts, completely original, tough and lively and in full possession of the wit of the keen-eyed, funny and never sparing on the gross details of life.
July 17, 2012
This book reminds me of John Fante's Bandini writing - the loneliness that is constantly on the verge of despair, the sense of Los Angeles as a main character. It also has Fante's immigrant desire to be someone and something else and then getting frustrated when everyone else doesn't see what you are trying to be. However, Waclawiak definitely has her own voice.
When we are introduced to the main character we discover she immediately wishes to be anybody but herself, for about 5 or 6 reasons. We don't even learn her name, just the name of the character she is inventing for herself in order to gain entry to a better world than the one in which she lives and which she came from. There are a few diversions for the protagonist that work to varying degrees of success to push the novel forward (bingo-widows, nagging mothers, forest fires, motel swimming pools) but the story at its core is of a girl trying to make her way in a universe that really doesn't give a shit. And all the plot devices fit together nicely, in the end.
This is a simple novel by a very skilled writer who isn't trying to redefine fiction, which is what I liked best about it.
When we are introduced to the main character we discover she immediately wishes to be anybody but herself, for about 5 or 6 reasons. We don't even learn her name, just the name of the character she is inventing for herself in order to gain entry to a better world than the one in which she lives and which she came from. There are a few diversions for the protagonist that work to varying degrees of success to push the novel forward (bingo-widows, nagging mothers, forest fires, motel swimming pools) but the story at its core is of a girl trying to make her way in a universe that really doesn't give a shit. And all the plot devices fit together nicely, in the end.
This is a simple novel by a very skilled writer who isn't trying to redefine fiction, which is what I liked best about it.
September 1, 2025
#️⃣4️⃣2️⃣5️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 ☁️🪨
Date : 🌬️ Sunday, August 31, 2025 🌪️🌫️☕
Word Count📃: 49k Words 🐑⛰️
⋆𖦹⋆ˎˊ˗ 〰️〰️〰️ ──── .✦
₍^. .^₎⟆ My 47th read in "But I can see us lost in the memory. August slipped away into a moment in time. 'Cause it was never mine" August 🤍
5️⃣🌟, i don't know why everyone is hating this
——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗
I can tell that this is one of tho more well written contemporary literary fiction novels. It all presents all the negative qualities of human beings very much! The entire story is basically Anya lusting over russian boy Lev. A woman lusting over a man being the focus of something??!!?!?!? Well that's what you never see everyday....hmmmm i feel like there's an entire genre dedicated to the exact opposite of this
What's it called again??? Oh yeah......DARK ROMANCE
But when it's the exact opposite, people suddenly hate on it now?
The mood and the tone of this book is genuinely something that i've seen and average somewhere but this time it is presented in a unique way and something that i've never read something like it before. It is pretty funny but even though that's the case, it is not overshadowing the deep topics that this book discusses, its fun and creative and thought provoking at the same time. The book also focuses on many different locations and the imagery + descriptions that are done with the place are the aspects of a story where this book shines the most. Its a bit "Setting-heavy", not movid by the plot that much, nor the characters, but the ✨setting✨
Date : 🌬️ Sunday, August 31, 2025 🌪️🌫️☕
Word Count📃: 49k Words 🐑⛰️
⋆𖦹⋆ˎˊ˗ 〰️〰️〰️ ──── .✦
₍^. .^₎⟆ My 47th read in "But I can see us lost in the memory. August slipped away into a moment in time. 'Cause it was never mine" August 🤍
5️⃣🌟, i don't know why everyone is hating this
——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗
I can tell that this is one of tho more well written contemporary literary fiction novels. It all presents all the negative qualities of human beings very much! The entire story is basically Anya lusting over russian boy Lev. A woman lusting over a man being the focus of something??!!?!?!? Well that's what you never see everyday....hmmmm i feel like there's an entire genre dedicated to the exact opposite of this
What's it called again??? Oh yeah......DARK ROMANCE
But when it's the exact opposite, people suddenly hate on it now?
The mood and the tone of this book is genuinely something that i've seen and average somewhere but this time it is presented in a unique way and something that i've never read something like it before. It is pretty funny but even though that's the case, it is not overshadowing the deep topics that this book discusses, its fun and creative and thought provoking at the same time. The book also focuses on many different locations and the imagery + descriptions that are done with the place are the aspects of a story where this book shines the most. Its a bit "Setting-heavy", not movid by the plot that much, nor the characters, but the ✨setting✨
August 15, 2012
This book stinks, and by that I mean only that odors permeate the page: Onions mixed with cheap cologne. Dried saliva. Dill and boiled potatoes. “Food smells from the neighbors tumbled through the walls. Chicken fat from soup and dried sausages mixed with urine from the pipes in the bathroom. The smells seeped into the beds, the sofa, and the carpet.”
A vivid sensory experience told by an outsider equally ill at ease in mainstream Los Angeles, in her pan-Slavic neighborhood, and with regard to her own Polish heritage. The gas money and unemployment checks dwindle away as the narrator conducts a squalid affair with a Russian man offering a way to penetrate the mysterious, nostalgic allure of the titular nightclub. A sensitive portrayal of Los Angeles as a nature-cursed trap for lost souls.
A vivid sensory experience told by an outsider equally ill at ease in mainstream Los Angeles, in her pan-Slavic neighborhood, and with regard to her own Polish heritage. The gas money and unemployment checks dwindle away as the narrator conducts a squalid affair with a Russian man offering a way to penetrate the mysterious, nostalgic allure of the titular nightclub. A sensitive portrayal of Los Angeles as a nature-cursed trap for lost souls.
September 14, 2014
A weirdly funny, yet strangely tragic story about an unemployed 20-year old single white female living off Fairfax in West Hollywood. This immigrant girl's sole ambition is to pass as Russian so she can enter the Russian club, the Twin Palms. She dyes her Polish blond hair all kinds of cheap ugly and then curses the yellow roots growing back. She buys lots of thin cigarettes that seem like Russian women, smokes a ton, and runs around a track until she barfs all over it. From her apartment balcony, she seduces a complete Russian stranger who is basically scary as hell and stinky gross, but she really wants to see the inside of this Russian immigrant club, so...you know. She has to let him inside first, know what ah mean? Ha! So the rest of the story is about her waiting around for the scary Russian man to show up, taking note of the congested and ashy heat/heart of Los Angeles, and reflecting on her Polish past.
This story was about more than just a flimsy, girly desire to get into a nochnoy klub. I enjoyed the way the author addresses the way some immigrants adjust to Americanization. Also, this character was in lazy limbo mode which I found refreshing since most of the time it seems like everyone migrates to Los Angeles to become overly-concerned with definition by career titles and social status. Blah. I appreciated that the character wasn't defined by these things and didn't aspire to all that nonsense. There was more of a focus on who she was as a person and deciding who to identify with. She really wants to belong to a group. It was fun to watch her juggle her experiences growing up in Poland with her present life in L.A. A part of L.A. which can be lonely yet crowded and was described by the narrator with a big ol' scoop of distaste and depressing detail. I guess it can seem like that here though...
This story was about more than just a flimsy, girly desire to get into a nochnoy klub. I enjoyed the way the author addresses the way some immigrants adjust to Americanization. Also, this character was in lazy limbo mode which I found refreshing since most of the time it seems like everyone migrates to Los Angeles to become overly-concerned with definition by career titles and social status. Blah. I appreciated that the character wasn't defined by these things and didn't aspire to all that nonsense. There was more of a focus on who she was as a person and deciding who to identify with. She really wants to belong to a group. It was fun to watch her juggle her experiences growing up in Poland with her present life in L.A. A part of L.A. which can be lonely yet crowded and was described by the narrator with a big ol' scoop of distaste and depressing detail. I guess it can seem like that here though...
April 19, 2013
I know this novel was purposefully dead-pan. Still I'd say that I was exasperated along the course of the read, for the protagonist's clueless idling presented in the mere accumulation of artless sentences. And now readers have to adore this as some sort of the hipsterdom in its height? At least that is how the novel is marketed. I really don't understand why, but if it really is, I just want to be counted out.
September 29, 2016
This is one of those books that make you really ponder and think about the story. After finishing the book, it took me a couple of minutes to gather myself. I don't know what fucked my mind up more: the heroine's depressing narrative or the way the story progressed.
She calls herself Anka and doesn't use her real name. And she makes you question yourself. Set in the midst of Los Angeles, How to get into the Twin Palms portrays the city as an un-sexy beast, keen on destroying its citizens, or how one of the characters put it in the book, keen on pushing out the people living inside it. Anka is as close to the character Rachel from The Girl On the Train as she can get. This means that you are inclined to hate her as much as you can hate Rachel. Where Rachel made you hate alcoholics all around the world, Anka makes you hate everything as well as herself. I never imagined that the city of angels and its inhabitants could be portrayed in a less than impressive light. Anka's narrative focused mainly on three things: (1) the details about the food. Damn. The food. I am a food lover to my bone and to read accounts of disgusting food items didn't help. Smelly broths. Nearly raw meat. Greasy soups. Bony fishes. Russian dishes with the most unappetizing array of ingredients. Food you never imagined existed. Food that makes you cross out Russian and Polish dishes from your to-eat list. Then, (2) who she wishes to bed. And exactly how they will smell. The most used words were onions, sweat and smoke. And lastly (3) her pain. For most readers it won't be a huge part of the book but for me Anka's pain really came through her story. The way she pines after extremely ugly guys, the way she constantly dyes her hair the ugliest shades, the way she dresses, the way she doesn't care for herself, the way she comes across as this really dirty, greasy girl with a fucked up mind, all of it spoke to me of her underlying sadness. There are a few unspoken themes in the book but I know they were indicating towards how she is not in the right state of mind. Among these include a retelling of how her grandfather died after leaving streams of (literal) shit and blood behind him, how one of her cousins was being debauched by her brother-in-law and how she grew up in a home that always stank of urine and despair.
This story is extremely raw. It makes you very depressed as well because Anka is not a happy person. And she commits a crime near the end that makes you question where she will end up in life. I am still glad I read this book though.
She calls herself Anka and doesn't use her real name. And she makes you question yourself. Set in the midst of Los Angeles, How to get into the Twin Palms portrays the city as an un-sexy beast, keen on destroying its citizens, or how one of the characters put it in the book, keen on pushing out the people living inside it. Anka is as close to the character Rachel from The Girl On the Train as she can get. This means that you are inclined to hate her as much as you can hate Rachel. Where Rachel made you hate alcoholics all around the world, Anka makes you hate everything as well as herself. I never imagined that the city of angels and its inhabitants could be portrayed in a less than impressive light. Anka's narrative focused mainly on three things: (1) the details about the food. Damn. The food. I am a food lover to my bone and to read accounts of disgusting food items didn't help. Smelly broths. Nearly raw meat. Greasy soups. Bony fishes. Russian dishes with the most unappetizing array of ingredients. Food you never imagined existed. Food that makes you cross out Russian and Polish dishes from your to-eat list. Then, (2) who she wishes to bed. And exactly how they will smell. The most used words were onions, sweat and smoke. And lastly (3) her pain. For most readers it won't be a huge part of the book but for me Anka's pain really came through her story. The way she pines after extremely ugly guys, the way she constantly dyes her hair the ugliest shades, the way she dresses, the way she doesn't care for herself, the way she comes across as this really dirty, greasy girl with a fucked up mind, all of it spoke to me of her underlying sadness. There are a few unspoken themes in the book but I know they were indicating towards how she is not in the right state of mind. Among these include a retelling of how her grandfather died after leaving streams of (literal) shit and blood behind him, how one of her cousins was being debauched by her brother-in-law and how she grew up in a home that always stank of urine and despair.
This story is extremely raw. It makes you very depressed as well because Anka is not a happy person. And she commits a crime near the end that makes you question where she will end up in life. I am still glad I read this book though.
June 18, 2025
this feels like the mother of all 'neurotic millennial woman with weird niche interests obsesses over an objectively awful love interest and then things get real gonzo' novels that all the others have been trying to imitate. we love to see an unlikeable insane female lead with an actual backbone instead of whatever confrontation-averse garbage ottessa moshfegh is writing.
February 26, 2018
This book was all kinds of delightful! The premise of the book is SUPER simple; a young polish-immigrant in Los Angeles, Anya, wants to get into a Trendy Russian Nightclub, Twin Palms, that’s in her neighborhood.
Much of the story is full of Anya’s insightful and witty musings about immigrant life in LA, her childhood in Poland, her struggles with assimilating into American culture and, most importantly, her far-fetch schemes to get into the Twin Palms.
One day, Anya meets an enigmatic Russian man who she believes is her ticket into Twin Palms. Thus, right away she stars an intimate relationship with him... I guess it won’t be a real spoiler to say that nothing goes the way Anya planned in her head and that’s where the main story is.
Funny, Sad, Poetic, Witty, And To-do-point, this book offers an truly unique reading experience! If you like piece-of-life kind of books I highly recommend this one!!!!
Much of the story is full of Anya’s insightful and witty musings about immigrant life in LA, her childhood in Poland, her struggles with assimilating into American culture and, most importantly, her far-fetch schemes to get into the Twin Palms.
One day, Anya meets an enigmatic Russian man who she believes is her ticket into Twin Palms. Thus, right away she stars an intimate relationship with him... I guess it won’t be a real spoiler to say that nothing goes the way Anya planned in her head and that’s where the main story is.
Funny, Sad, Poetic, Witty, And To-do-point, this book offers an truly unique reading experience! If you like piece-of-life kind of books I highly recommend this one!!!!
February 28, 2018
Už jsem v životě četl hodně knih s bizarním nebo odporným příběhem, ale tahle je asi všechny přebila. Jak se dostat do Twin Palms je totiž o buchtičce, která chce spát jen se smradlavýma Rusama, kteří jí borščšž, aby se díky tomu dostala na ruskou diskotéku v Twin Palms.
Zde si představte znělku z Akt X.
Netrvá to dlouho a buchtička opravdu uloví muže svých snů, prince, kterého by jí každá mohla závidět. Smradlavého chlupatého Rusa s rozepnutou košilí, který ji hned z kraje vyjadřuje lásku tím, že ji říká ať drží hubu a po sexu chrápe jako zabitej. Co k tomu dodat, #romantica. Buchtička je kromě této úchylky samozřejmě i v ostatních aspektech ujetá a dřív než se člověk naděje, sleduje klasickou indie chcanku o ztraceným loserovi, který zápasí se svou intimitou, kořeny, hledá sám sebe a další podobný hlemzy. Nicméně, bylo to docela dobrý. Sice tenhle subžánr moc nemusím, tady to ale nebylo tak na ránu a je pravda, že Waclawiak dobře vtáhne do knihy a především z LA udělala další, smrdutý charakter. Něco jako Fante. A já musím letět na záchod, takže se už asi více nedozvíte.
Slušných 7/10
Zde si představte znělku z Akt X.
Netrvá to dlouho a buchtička opravdu uloví muže svých snů, prince, kterého by jí každá mohla závidět. Smradlavého chlupatého Rusa s rozepnutou košilí, který ji hned z kraje vyjadřuje lásku tím, že ji říká ať drží hubu a po sexu chrápe jako zabitej. Co k tomu dodat, #romantica. Buchtička je kromě této úchylky samozřejmě i v ostatních aspektech ujetá a dřív než se člověk naděje, sleduje klasickou indie chcanku o ztraceným loserovi, který zápasí se svou intimitou, kořeny, hledá sám sebe a další podobný hlemzy. Nicméně, bylo to docela dobrý. Sice tenhle subžánr moc nemusím, tady to ale nebylo tak na ránu a je pravda, že Waclawiak dobře vtáhne do knihy a především z LA udělala další, smrdutý charakter. Něco jako Fante. A já musím letět na záchod, takže se už asi více nedozvíte.
Slušných 7/10
January 2, 2014
Such a strange feeling to read a book that inhabits a geography with which I am intimate but presents a world that is strange to the point of being almost alien. Waclawiak takes the received images of a specific type of immigrant experience and transmutes them into a universal feelings of longing and nostalgia, a dangerous cocktail of emotions for people stuck between places.
July 16, 2016
This book started promising, even funny. And then just went downhill and became depressing and revolting. I give it to the author, her descriptions of smells and mattress stains were powerful enough to give me stomach aches.
I think the ending is supposed to give you hope, but I didn't get it.
I think the ending is supposed to give you hope, but I didn't get it.
September 14, 2012
This felt different than other books I've read, and though I liked it, I think it's one that I have to read again to get the little details I missed the first time.
June 7, 2020
If you have ever:
a. tried to take up smoking in an effort to adopt a different persona but nobody was convinced
b. felt compelled to get closer to a natural disaster....just because you want to feel...something....but if you're honest with yourself the main thing you want to feel is INTERESTING...maybe
c. become hyperfixated on some specific event in the future, which you're very fucking sure will change your life, only to have it blow up in your face SPECTACULARLY
d. you miss California, ugly strip malls and blistering desert winds and all
e. you've been away from home long enough that you don't fit in there, but you give off enough of an alien vibe that you don't fit in with your new crowd either
you will surely be able to relate to this compact but quietly powerful little book.
a. tried to take up smoking in an effort to adopt a different persona but nobody was convinced
b. felt compelled to get closer to a natural disaster....just because you want to feel...something....but if you're honest with yourself the main thing you want to feel is INTERESTING...maybe
c. become hyperfixated on some specific event in the future, which you're very fucking sure will change your life, only to have it blow up in your face SPECTACULARLY
d. you miss California, ugly strip malls and blistering desert winds and all
e. you've been away from home long enough that you don't fit in there, but you give off enough of an alien vibe that you don't fit in with your new crowd either
you will surely be able to relate to this compact but quietly powerful little book.
November 8, 2018
I feel that How to Get into the Twin Palms has a very appealing cover and a very strong start. I love the idea of reading a contemporary account of modern Eastern European immigrants in America; it's RELEVANT and IMPORTANT to gain different perspectives, and that's why books (and reading) are a critical art form, in my opinion. But, this is not a review based around the importance of books.
How to Get into the Twin Palms is a story about *character* who uses a false name for most of the story (Anka). She is a first-generation Polish immigrant who grew up in Texas and now lives in Los Angeles. For some reason (it can only be inferred through the text), Anka wants to shed her Polish identity and be recognized as a Russian immigrant. It is more appealing and glamourous from her balcony as she watches Russian men and women draped in furs and polyester make their way into a luxurious club, the Twin Palms, on a frequent basis. The novel is framed by the landscape of LA and the Santa Anas fires, by strange men, and loss (so much loss) by Anka and all of the characters in the story.
The novel is filled with the smell and taste of Eastern European cuisine, the feeling of cheap fabrics, and the smell of hair dye. It is a very visceral novel, and a very sad one. Anka is depressed and despairing throughout the entirety of the text.
In short: it isn't a pretty book to read.
I rated this book so low because I feel that some of the literary "ness" of the book was lost on me. It is outside of my reading purview at this time, and I may not appreciate it as much as I may have 5 - 10 years ago. Glad to say that I am not able to related to the meandering sadness that Anka felt as I once was. I also really, really disliked the "love interest", Lev, and her seemingly stereotypical portrayal of Russian/Ukrainian/Polish people. I say this with love, from one Slav to another, that perhaps there is truth in her descriptions, they are just a bit of a hyperbole. That being said, I am a Canadian, and maybe LA gets a different immigrant experience than we do here, a more settled land.
In retrospect, I enjoyed this novel. However, I also remember being glad tossing it aside and moving on from the characters. If anything, maybe I would bump it up to 3/5 stars as it does age well, living a bitter taste on the tongue of the reader, much like an old, yet tasty, cheese.
How to Get into the Twin Palms is a story about *character* who uses a false name for most of the story (Anka). She is a first-generation Polish immigrant who grew up in Texas and now lives in Los Angeles. For some reason (it can only be inferred through the text), Anka wants to shed her Polish identity and be recognized as a Russian immigrant. It is more appealing and glamourous from her balcony as she watches Russian men and women draped in furs and polyester make their way into a luxurious club, the Twin Palms, on a frequent basis. The novel is framed by the landscape of LA and the Santa Anas fires, by strange men, and loss (so much loss) by Anka and all of the characters in the story.
The novel is filled with the smell and taste of Eastern European cuisine, the feeling of cheap fabrics, and the smell of hair dye. It is a very visceral novel, and a very sad one. Anka is depressed and despairing throughout the entirety of the text.
In short: it isn't a pretty book to read.
I rated this book so low because I feel that some of the literary "ness" of the book was lost on me. It is outside of my reading purview at this time, and I may not appreciate it as much as I may have 5 - 10 years ago. Glad to say that I am not able to related to the meandering sadness that Anka felt as I once was. I also really, really disliked the "love interest", Lev, and her seemingly stereotypical portrayal of Russian/Ukrainian/Polish people. I say this with love, from one Slav to another, that perhaps there is truth in her descriptions, they are just a bit of a hyperbole. That being said, I am a Canadian, and maybe LA gets a different immigrant experience than we do here, a more settled land.
In retrospect, I enjoyed this novel. However, I also remember being glad tossing it aside and moving on from the characters. If anything, maybe I would bump it up to 3/5 stars as it does age well, living a bitter taste on the tongue of the reader, much like an old, yet tasty, cheese.
June 18, 2019
A totally different immigrant story with some amazing sensory descriptions
Read
January 23, 2023Over 10 years ago, I noted that I wanted to read this. I wish I remember what prompted me to do that, because 10% in I have no idea why I would want to read it.
August 1, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. The chapters were mostly short and kind of choppy, which I liked, and I thought the author accomplished a lot in less than 200 pages. The narrator would probably fall in the “unlikeable” category for a lot of people, but I found her neuroses interesting and couldn’t wait to see what weird interaction she would have next. This was also a take on the current European immigrant experience that I’d never read about before and thought it was a very genuine take, as the author herself immigrated from Poland. I thought the side characters were fun to read about, including Mary at the bingo hall and her quirky neighbors, and things just generally felt fleshed out. Her relationship with Lev explored a false intimacy that people experience with people they think they know but really don’t, which is universally relatable. I also found the juxtaposition between the character’s trajectory and the growing fires in the general LA area compelling.
February 18, 2020
Fantastic prose...but the story made me want to jump off a bridge.😔
August 7, 2025
4.25/5 ⭐️
oooodlično i tužno
volela bih da je malo konkretniji kraj doduše, ali i pored toga me oduvala
oooodlično i tužno
volela bih da je malo konkretniji kraj doduše, ali i pored toga me oduvala
July 21, 2014
Feeling a need to stretch myself as a reader, I bought a subscription to Emily's Books. She selects one book a month, one that most likely would not have been on my radar. This first book was way outside my comfort zone. This book was not written to prove the author's finesse with words but rather to take us into a single immigrant's world. A world that is filled with stained mattresses, vomit and violence. Universal truths are not espoused; it's just one gritty tale that haunted me.
The writing is raw, evoking images and smells that are often disturbing, occasionally amusing. Anka, the 25 year old Polish immigrant, "dreams of nothing in particular". It is so easy to get lost in our own values and be frustrated with characters who have been beaten down by their poverty and experiences. I felt that this author, more than any other, made me see the daily grind of trying to reinvent yourself in a city where loneliness and lack of viable options can be suffocating.
Anka (her chosen name) chooses Twin Palms as her exotic symbol of belonging. Her unfulfilling sexual encounters, push up bras, dyed hair and Russian persona allow her entrance into a world where she does not belong. "I am starting to make sense to them. I am taking off all of my American skin." She emigrated before she "came of age" and feels disconnected from her homeland and this American wasteland.
The backdrop for the entire story is the wildfires raging around the city. When she swims in a private pool, she is covered in ashes from the winds and the fire. She is dirtied every time she tries to cleanse herself. Her eventual action, which flies against her usual passivity, surprised me.
Mary, a bingo player at the hall where Anka is the caller, provides some levity even though she is grieving her husband's death. Anka remarks, "Perhaps she was happy in her grief. After all, it was all she had left." So I wonder, is grief different if you've loved and lost than if that special love has eluded you?
It's in the "space between the clouds" that this book speaks. It's a story that can only be told in chunks that the reader needs to embrace and connect. Have to ponder why I couldn't give this book 5 stars. Hope it wasn't because I wanted more hope.
The writing is raw, evoking images and smells that are often disturbing, occasionally amusing. Anka, the 25 year old Polish immigrant, "dreams of nothing in particular". It is so easy to get lost in our own values and be frustrated with characters who have been beaten down by their poverty and experiences. I felt that this author, more than any other, made me see the daily grind of trying to reinvent yourself in a city where loneliness and lack of viable options can be suffocating.
Anka (her chosen name) chooses Twin Palms as her exotic symbol of belonging. Her unfulfilling sexual encounters, push up bras, dyed hair and Russian persona allow her entrance into a world where she does not belong. "I am starting to make sense to them. I am taking off all of my American skin." She emigrated before she "came of age" and feels disconnected from her homeland and this American wasteland.
The backdrop for the entire story is the wildfires raging around the city. When she swims in a private pool, she is covered in ashes from the winds and the fire. She is dirtied every time she tries to cleanse herself. Her eventual action, which flies against her usual passivity, surprised me.
Mary, a bingo player at the hall where Anka is the caller, provides some levity even though she is grieving her husband's death. Anka remarks, "Perhaps she was happy in her grief. After all, it was all she had left." So I wonder, is grief different if you've loved and lost than if that special love has eluded you?
It's in the "space between the clouds" that this book speaks. It's a story that can only be told in chunks that the reader needs to embrace and connect. Have to ponder why I couldn't give this book 5 stars. Hope it wasn't because I wanted more hope.
October 30, 2012
Waclawiak has a very visceral literary style, that feels refreshing and real. She describes very intimate details of sex and life vividly and unflatteringly. After reading How to Get Into the Twin Palms, I felt I had taken a journey in Anya’s body. I could feel her raw, burnt hands, her cut vagina lip, and her losing battle with her newly grown in roots, exposing her artificial hair color. However, as familiar as I was with Anya’s body I never reached the same closeness with Anja’s mind and her motivations seemed lacking. I understand her desire to belong, her isolation of being in between two worlds, not really a part of either. Anja believes that the glamorous and selective world of the Twin Palms will bring her happiness and allow her to lead a totally new interesting life, a life away from being unemployed, unloved, and unnoticed.
Anja is one of the most passive narrators I have ever read. She waits and waits for a man to come into her life, to solve all her problems and create excitement. Once, she finds a man she continues to wait for him, never knowing when he’ll show up on her door step and what he’ll want when he gets there. She does not think about her actions or the consequences of those actions, which makes her a very unsympathetic character. We do not know enough of her background to fully understand the way she behaves. Honestly, I felt more for the old lady, Mary, then I ever felt for Anya. I could feel her grief, loneliness, and isolation in a way that touched me, whereas Anya’s unhappiness seemed to result from herself and the choices she made.
I think the author has promise, but this book could have been better.
Anja is one of the most passive narrators I have ever read. She waits and waits for a man to come into her life, to solve all her problems and create excitement. Once, she finds a man she continues to wait for him, never knowing when he’ll show up on her door step and what he’ll want when he gets there. She does not think about her actions or the consequences of those actions, which makes her a very unsympathetic character. We do not know enough of her background to fully understand the way she behaves. Honestly, I felt more for the old lady, Mary, then I ever felt for Anya. I could feel her grief, loneliness, and isolation in a way that touched me, whereas Anya’s unhappiness seemed to result from herself and the choices she made.
I think the author has promise, but this book could have been better.
August 11, 2012
Bleak, this story of a lost young woman in the Russian enclave of Los Angeles during fiery Santa Ana season. Why, you keep asking yourself. Why does she do what she does, want what she wants? Very interesting.
Now, either I missed something or I'm dumb or there's a misprint (there are a couple of little ones) but there's a section in the middle, an episode in Poland with a family member, that comes on so surprisingly, I wonder if there's an introductory paragraph or sentence missing. Someone plays a part in her life and he's not named. Maybe that's the answer there.
Also, I bike almost daily through every street in the heroine's neighborhood and I've been to both Polish restaurants in Los Angeles, both also in the book.
Something about it reminds me of Play It as It Lays, but for the 21st century, immigrant set.
Now, either I missed something or I'm dumb or there's a misprint (there are a couple of little ones) but there's a section in the middle, an episode in Poland with a family member, that comes on so surprisingly, I wonder if there's an introductory paragraph or sentence missing. Someone plays a part in her life and he's not named. Maybe that's the answer there.
Also, I bike almost daily through every street in the heroine's neighborhood and I've been to both Polish restaurants in Los Angeles, both also in the book.
Something about it reminds me of Play It as It Lays, but for the 21st century, immigrant set.
September 9, 2012
Very entertaining at first. This book probably merits four stars, but it left me with such a nasty, gritty feeling in the end (and that is probably why it deserves four stars, but I don't like nasty feelings, so I give it three stars!). You can't help but empathize with the main character at first, but as the story drags on, you realize the manipulative brat is responsible for her own sorrows.
August 14, 2012
I could not put this book down. I loves the voice and the feeling of aloneness and alienation and the added layer of despair from Los Angeles. It felt real and not made-for-tv. Every part of the story was believable, the characters made me like them and hate them and care about them.
April 24, 2013
(review forthcoming)
May 8, 2016
Super raro, pero bue.
May 23, 2017
"The fires were closer now. No longer in Simi Valley or the outskirts of the city. I could see rows of red and orange, fire lines down the hills in Burbank and moving closer to us, along the ridges of the mountains."
The Los Angeles county wildfires provide an unexpectedly fitting backdrop for a story of Anya, a 25-year-old woman who emigrated from Poland and settled in California having gone through refugee camps first in Austria then in Texas. Anya is struggling to find her place in Los Angeles: "a desperately sad study of loneliness and alienation" - this worn-out cliché best characterizes Karolina Waclawiak's How to get into the Twin Palms (2012).
Anya is currently unemployed and not particularly eager to look for job: she earns some money reading numbers for elderly ladies' bingo meetings and collects unemployment checks. She lives in an immigrant neighborhood near Fairfax predominantly occupied by Russians and Ukrainians. Twin Palms is a Russian night club next door from her rent-controlled apartment building. The only people with whom Anya has a semblance of human contact are a few of her neighbors and an 83-year-old woman from the bingo club.
Unable to find her place in the alien world Anya tries to reinvent herself and establish some sort of niche where she could exist. She desperately looks for human connection and clings to a somewhat shady Russian man, Lev, who is happy to sleep with her whenever it is convenient for him. Eventually Anya's Big Dream becomes reality: Lev takes her to the Twin Palms.
The real climax of the novel occurs a bit later and takes place in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. The dramatic, unexpected, and poignant scenes will linger in the reader's mind for a long time. On the backdrop of Simi Valley Fires, in the line of sight of the HOLLYWOOD sign Anya begins the final phase of reinventing herself and making her mark on the imperfect world.
The climactic scenes remind me of The Day of the Locust finale and if anything they are even more powerful. While Ms. Waclawiak makes a convincing point that a person cannot exist alone, the heavy-handed metaphor of the plot bothers me: trying to get into the Twin Palms signifies an attempt to assimilate with the alien society and the fierce fires that cleanse the desert provide a metaphor for rebirth. The molting, skin-changing metaphor is also too obvious. In addition I find it hard to be impressed with a choppy, first-person narration, a sort of staccato recitation of short affirmative sentences beginning with "I".
The immigrant's curse is portrayed convincingly. Being a Polish immigrant - although in completely different circumstances, ones of relative luxury - I can recognize in Anya parts of people of my ethnicity whom I know. I can recognize the guilt and the shame of Polishness. I understand the desperate struggle to escape the bigos and the pierogi. And I also recognize the fear of escaping the Polishness too far. Anya rejects the culture which she inherited but attempts to adopt one that is different but not different enough.
Three and a quarter stars.
The Los Angeles county wildfires provide an unexpectedly fitting backdrop for a story of Anya, a 25-year-old woman who emigrated from Poland and settled in California having gone through refugee camps first in Austria then in Texas. Anya is struggling to find her place in Los Angeles: "a desperately sad study of loneliness and alienation" - this worn-out cliché best characterizes Karolina Waclawiak's How to get into the Twin Palms (2012).
Anya is currently unemployed and not particularly eager to look for job: she earns some money reading numbers for elderly ladies' bingo meetings and collects unemployment checks. She lives in an immigrant neighborhood near Fairfax predominantly occupied by Russians and Ukrainians. Twin Palms is a Russian night club next door from her rent-controlled apartment building. The only people with whom Anya has a semblance of human contact are a few of her neighbors and an 83-year-old woman from the bingo club.
Unable to find her place in the alien world Anya tries to reinvent herself and establish some sort of niche where she could exist. She desperately looks for human connection and clings to a somewhat shady Russian man, Lev, who is happy to sleep with her whenever it is convenient for him. Eventually Anya's Big Dream becomes reality: Lev takes her to the Twin Palms.
The real climax of the novel occurs a bit later and takes place in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. The dramatic, unexpected, and poignant scenes will linger in the reader's mind for a long time. On the backdrop of Simi Valley Fires, in the line of sight of the HOLLYWOOD sign Anya begins the final phase of reinventing herself and making her mark on the imperfect world.
The climactic scenes remind me of The Day of the Locust finale and if anything they are even more powerful. While Ms. Waclawiak makes a convincing point that a person cannot exist alone, the heavy-handed metaphor of the plot bothers me: trying to get into the Twin Palms signifies an attempt to assimilate with the alien society and the fierce fires that cleanse the desert provide a metaphor for rebirth. The molting, skin-changing metaphor is also too obvious. In addition I find it hard to be impressed with a choppy, first-person narration, a sort of staccato recitation of short affirmative sentences beginning with "I".
The immigrant's curse is portrayed convincingly. Being a Polish immigrant - although in completely different circumstances, ones of relative luxury - I can recognize in Anya parts of people of my ethnicity whom I know. I can recognize the guilt and the shame of Polishness. I understand the desperate struggle to escape the bigos and the pierogi. And I also recognize the fear of escaping the Polishness too far. Anya rejects the culture which she inherited but attempts to adopt one that is different but not different enough.
Three and a quarter stars.
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