Action Heroine Fans discussion

Blending the grittiness of urban fiction with the psychedelic iridescence of a rabbit-hole dream, Through the Magic Sunglasses is an oddly heart-warming allegory about the magic that resides within us all.
Somewhere along the way to adulthood, we stop wishing for magic wands and dragon’s eggs. But it’s a different kind of magic that suddenly takes Mariia from her boyfriend’s apartment in Kyiv across Europe to the Middle East. Mariia breaks up with her rich boyfriend over his infidelity and storms off to Berlin on a quest for emotional independence. On the way, a mysterious cab driver hands her a pair of sunglasses that he confides are magic.
Wearing the glasses gives Mariia entry into a parallel dimension, an echo of the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. The world the protagonist finds herself in resembles Carroll’s in its strangeness—an adult version populated with rich vixens and MDMA clubs.
In Berlin, Mariia befriends three women only to accidentally obtain a flash drive with compromising videos of them. This sets off a chase, and at every crisis, Mariia’s sunglasses point out escape routes from the three she-devils. With their help, she is able to escape and ultimately emerge free—of her pursuers and of her heartbreak.
This allegory holds a power all of its own with its melding of fact and fantasy, of magic and mundanity, and this dual truth is central to Manko’s message: Real magic is within you, if you believe in it.
At the end of the novel, Mariia passes on the magic sunglasses to her lover, Sayid. And even as she learns that the sunglasses are completely ordinary, he calls her to gush about their magic. Their legacy has been passed on—another has entered the world of the sunglasses. And even though the bus to work being five minutes late may be a miracle in our grey, concrete lives, some sparkle of that belief in magic remains with us.
When Mariia storms out of her boyfriend’s Kyiv apartment forever, she has no idea what is awaiting her. She is handed a pair of ‘magic’ sunglasses by a mysterious cabdriver on her way to Berlin, and what begins as a journey to get over her breakup turns out to be the adventure of her life. The sunglasses become her secret helper, always showing her an escape route as Mariia is chased by a trio of rich, vindictive women who want a compromising flash drive back from her, going from Berlin to Dusseldorf to Paris and then on to Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah.
Combining urban fiction and self-help with a dashing tale of adventure, Mariia Manko’s Through the Magic Sunglasses is a magical story about independence, strength, and believing in yourself.