It looks like a classic coming of age story. A teenager has major trouble with authority, and is more interested in drinking, doing drugs and having sex than doing what the adult world expects of him. Until, finally, big bad reality catches up with him and forces him to deal with the consequences.

But this skeleton frame is really the only thing unoriginal about this story, which quite frankly blew me away. For the setting here is the Musical Academy for Gifted Children in Sofia, Bugaria, in the years just before the fall of the iron curtain. Konstantin is not an ideologist, he’s just rebellious and has no patience for the strict regime at the Academy. He’s skipping classes to have sex in the attic with brilliant Irina, he’s cheating at tests, he’s selling school property to his hoodlum pals, he’s taunting the party’s informants, he’s constantly pulling pranks. And he gets away with it too, since he’s a genius pianist, a true wonderchild. He threads the thin line, his grades are more than wobbly - but he knows the school will never let him go, he will always defeat the mediocre by doing what he loves. Until the day his best friend Vadim, the other piano ace at the school, gets expelled, with no chance of ever seriously performing again. Suddenly, Konstantin’s beef with the teachers takes a very serious turn. Suddenly, the stakes are very high. Suddenly, music and futures and lives are destroyed.

This is probably the best coming of age story I’ve read ever. Grozni’s blend of dirty realism and lyrical descriptions of classical music is just right, and even an illiterate like me gets caught up in Konstantin’s imagery around Brahms, Bach and Chopin. You can really tell that Grozni himself has a background in classical music. The city Sofia is also beautifully caught, as are the late times of Bulgarian communism, a tired system with few earnest defenders, and the civil war in the faculty between the artistic teachers and the academic ones – the brutality of the latter only matched my the naivety of the former.

Best of all though, is how this books glissandos from bawdy entertainment to something very very serious, until I find myself silently gasping “oh no” at some of the final twists. I picked up Wunderkind at a sale, mainly to get a Bulgarian entry for my Europe Endless challenge. I wasn’t expecting the best book I’ve read this year. ( )

This is a dark, gritty, sometimes difficult read set in Bulgaria prior to the fall of communism. The narrator of the story is Konstantin, a brilliant but disillusioned adolescent pianist who is training at a special high school for musicians. Despite its musical focus, the school never ceases to push party doctrine on the students. Konstantin finds himself disgusted at the "sheep" mentality of those around him which is in stark contrast to his own rage against the system.

There is a heavy focus on music throughout the novel. I have a musical background, but I was lost in some places. I didn't find that this detracted from the story (although it did feel a bit frustrating at times). The point, however, is not the technicalities of the music, but the meaning of the music in the story-- how it moves the characters, drives them, punishes them, owns them, and saves them. Music is the one light in Konstantin's dull, grey world, his source of meaning; his relationship with the music and with those who speak his same language is touching, and eloquently portrayed.

There is no question that the novel is very heavy, and difficult in places. The setting is dark (Sofia is constantly covered by rolling grey clouds), reflecting a monochromatic life of automatonism. Konstantin often seems like a beautiful, angry bird beating his wings uselessly against a cage. His musings about his life and the world around him are frequently depressing as he feels increasingly suffocated and trapped. It is the darkness of the tone that makes the novel so effective. It drives home, relentlessly and painfully, the cruel consequences of a system in which individiuals are sacrificed for the good of the whole, the playing field is unfairly evened out, and uniqueness and independent thought are discouraged. It is an unrelenting, unflinchingly honest portrait of life under the communist regime.

If I'm being honest, it was somewhat difficult to like Konstantin's character at first; he seemed distant, self-absorbed and arrogant at times. But his sardonic, philosophical voice is compelling and relentlessly honest. And as the story continues, he makes perfect sense as a product of his environment. Even the way his character narrates reflects that environment-- a place in which you never really let anyone see the "inside" stuff. The rich reward of this novel is that eventually we do get to see the real, deeper humanity of Konstantin, and it's worth the wait.

This is not a novel that's concerned with whether it makes you feel good, or whether you like the characters. It's a raw, real, honest novel that puts you smack in the middle of a nightmare world that could happen anywhere. It opens the door to that world, pushes you inside and insists that experience it for yourself. It is about showing the truth, and it couldn't do so effectively without its raw, unapologetic grit.

It's a tough read. There were moments I wanted to put it down. And I'm so glad I didn't, because I would have missed out. If you can stick with the tough parts, this novel has tremendous rewards in store. The language is at once tight, crisp and lush and has a beautiful, almost musical flow to it. This is a novel with something to say, and it will leave you uncomfortable, unsettled, and deep in thought, the way great literature is supposed to. ( )

Konstantin is a child prodigy, playing the piano perfectly from a young age. He is sent to the best music academy in Bulgaria at the end of the Cold War right before the fall of the communist party. The story covers about two years of his life at age 16 and details the horrific abuse and hopelessness of the people during the late Eighties. The world Grozni has created seems almost out of a fantasy novel and it is hard to imagine a place where simple freedoms that we take for granted are nonexistent. The simple act of playing jazz is met with swift punishment and forced confessions of his unworthiness. As Konstantin finds himself rebelling against those in power, from his parents to the school teachers, he acts out and tries to lose himself in a daze of sex and alcohol ending up in a mental intuition before finally escaping into the real revolution taking place on the streets.

Each chapter begins with a music piece to set the tone and mood. I really wish that the book had come with a cd or playlist to listen to while reading since it would really enhance the story. It seems the story is based somewhat on the author's personal experience and I know even less about Bulgaria and that era than I should. This story truly enlightened me to the horrors that occurred in this era and location. It is not an easy book to read at times and even though there is a major surge in post apocalyptic novels for teens, this one proves that truth is stranger than fiction. ( )

Wunderkind has so many aspects to it that make it a wonderful, engulfing read. Grozni has a way with words, and his writing is excellent. There's very few books that seriously impact me emotionally, but this was one of them. Sometimes after putting Wunderkind down for the night (and maybe it was just because I was reading late at night that I was so affected or because I'm still an angsty, stressed teenager), the whole loneliness and depression of the characters and setting made me feel like curling up in a ball. Even though I never noticed much plot to the novel, I never thought about this while reading. I was never bored, even though I was reading slower than usual! Grozni also writes about music in a way I've never before thought of it, a way I wish I could view it. Alas, I'm one of the mediocre musicians Konstantin so abhors.

Wunderkind reads like a (literary) dystopian novel at times, and I've figured out from reading this that a lot of dystopian plots and aspects have probably come from Soviet influences. Like with Holocaust books, I would look at the date Konstantin is writing (1987-89) and wish I could tell the characters to hang on for only one more year or two, then everything would be over.

Unfortunately, the engulfing writing didn't stick with the novel for its entire length. The high emotions lasted for about half the book, then it just gradually ceased to be quite so special. Still, I rank Wunderkind with my other favorite teen bildungsromans - The Body of Christopher Creed, Going Bovine, and Jasper Jones - though its literary flavor sets it apart from these as does its realistic Soviet setting based on the author's own experiences. ( )