Laura Stevens’s Reviews > The Death of Ivan Ilych > Status Update
Laura Stevens
is 30% done
You can definitely tell it’s a book written in another language and not particularly well translated. Either that or Tolstoy genuinely wrote in a horribly boring fashion!
We’ve finished the funeral and now we’re hearing about Ivan Iliyichs life and how he went from job to job and how unhappy his marriage was. We seem to have hit a slightly more positive patch when he moves to St Petersburg but that’s it!
— Mar 22, 2026 01:11PM
We’ve finished the funeral and now we’re hearing about Ivan Iliyichs life and how he went from job to job and how unhappy his marriage was. We seem to have hit a slightly more positive patch when he moves to St Petersburg but that’s it!
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Laura’s Previous Updates
Laura Stevens
is 12% done
Sets the scene with a bunch of characters who’s names are hard to keep track of. Ivan Iliyich seems to have been some sort of public figure who everyone thought well of, and the first chapter seems to follow a character called Pyotr Ivanovich who knows the family rather well. Bit of a dull book so far but I’ve always struggled a bit with Tolstoy!
— Mar 21, 2026 02:38PM
