I read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy over a month ago, yet I still find myself thinking about it even now. It is one of those books that when you close the final page you hold it in your hands, lean back in your chair, and think; ‘Wow’.

Sometimes, I find it hard to believe that words on a page can have such an effect on you, but this novel has certainly imprinted itself on my mind. There is something about Anna that captivates me, a feeling that is summed up very well by one of Tolstoy’s descriptions:

‘Kitty immediately fell in love with her, as young girls often fall in love with married women older than themselves. Anna was not like a society woman, or the mother of an eight-year-old son; but, by her vivacity of movement, by the freshness and animation of her face, expressed in her smile and in her eyes, she would have been taken rather for a young girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and sometimes almost melancholy look, which struck and attracted Kitty.’

It is fair to say that I share Kitty Scherbatsky’s girl crush as documented in the above quote. But although Kitty’s regard for Anna disappears soon after, mine continues to grow throughout the novel. There is something attractive about her rebellion from society and her fall from grace for love, and although Tolstoy’s classic is 900 pages long, I didn’t regret pursuing it.

Keira Knightley plays Anna in the latest adaptation of the novel and if you want to check it out, here is the trailer. I am yet to see how it compares to the novel, but I am very much looking forward to finding out.