Kaye Lloyd
Tolstoy shows a deeply sensitive and complex understanding of women and love. The suffocation of an unhappy woman marriage is perfectly described, as is the uncertainty felt by her in desperate love.

Michaela Aylott
I first read Anna Karenina in my late teens and was fascinated how Tolstoy wrote about my emotions and experiences about love (unrequited and unwanted), being in love and jealousy. I recognised them, but would never have been able to put them into words. I have read the book again and again, and as I have grown older, married and had children, different emotions have revealed themselves in the novel, which I recognise too. Anna, Kitty, and Dolly were a revelation to me that despite the passing of generations, changes or differences in culture, being a woman and the feelings and experiences that entails, hardly seem to alter

Anon
When I read this I was 19 and found the heroine exciting and inspiational. The whole idea of passionate love outside normal society boundaries seemed romantic and rivetting. Anna's pain and suffering over her split loyalties was poignant. There were times, when first reading it that I urged her to get rid of the stuffy husband and forget the need to conform. Vronsky was every young womans fantasy; dashing, exciting,passonate and a great lover. She was for me at 19 the tragic heroine laid low by one fatal flaw -her passion for her lover. Years later I too ironically found myself in Anna's posistion. Safely married for many years, with a child and being very misunderstood. My Vronsky did come along. He was dashing, exciting and pasionate. But, like Anna I had a child, a boring husband who loved me and a whole life which was set in conformity. Only then did I really understand Anna's dilemma. My irritation with her was gone. Now I really understood what it was to have two lives, each with different people needing different parts of you. Tolstoy had absolutely got it right- all her thoughts, fears and concerns were accurate and now mine. I now saw the book in a rotally different light. I played the waiting game for 7 years, living two lives and terrified to break up the family and hurt my husband and son. Finally the situation became resolved but not in the way I has expected. My lover suddenly died and my dilemma was no longer Anna's but my only mine. This book has given me huge romantic excitemnt as a young woman with life before her and deep comfort in my middle years when I sometimes felt I was the only person feeling deep passion but at the same time not wanting to hurt those who loved me and whom I too loved in different ways. I am still where I was before my Vronsky and trying to rebuild what i had with my safe but loving Mr Karenin.

Brenda Higgs
I read this novel when I was about 19. The situation that struck me was that Anna had to give up everything to be with Count Vronsky, but he could not or would not understand her unhappiness. While he was still accepted in scoeity she was an outcast. I could not understand how he professed to love he so much but could not understand her pain. The double standards of polite society nad how it was considered ok for men to behave badly, but women were not allowed to sin (or be found out). His love was shallow. I was angy with both of them, her for falling for such a shallow man and him for his selfishness. It made me realise that I would never ever want to be in a position where I was so dependent on a man.

pete stockwell
In this novel Tolstoy presents his analysis of 19th century modernity. The technology of the industrial revolution (not least the railway) forms a metaphorical theme representing the pros and cons of modern social developments. Anna's first entrance and last exit are both marked by death beneath the wheels of a train. However, to those who blame Anna's downfall on Vronsky (or on Anna herself) I would like to point out that her name became evocative of the rhythm of a steam train the day she married the monster Karenin (Rosemary Edmonds, please note).

Madison James
This is without a doubt Tolstoy's finest. I love Russian literature and this piece just does things to a person. Reading Tolstoy is like reading someone's soul.

shamim Rahman
Beautiful story with real life learning experience

Helen Morris
I read the book as a teenager. It struck me as unjust the way that Anna was treated as a consequence of her actions. She had no rights and was at the complete mercy of her husband and society. Things have moved forward, certainly in our country, but not necessarily throughout the world.

Kate Skrypec
I first read this novel at just 18 passionately in love and confident that I had most things pretty well sorted out as far as life was concerned! This novel gave me a glimpse of the difficult choices faced specifically by women and helped me towards a better understanding of why sometimes the black and white rules that I'd assumed you should play by are almost impossible to apply.