I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This by Eugene Yelchin

I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This is Eugene Yelchin’s graphic-novel memoir of falling in love in the last decade of the Soviet Union.

I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This by Eugene Yelchin. Candlewick, 2025. 425 pages.

• Reading Level: Teens ages 15-18
• Recommended For: Ages 15-18

It’s been a few years since Yevgeny (a.k.a. Eugene) Yelchin was The Genius under the Table (see our starred review). Now it’s 1980 and he’s 24 years old, a struggling young artist in Leningrad (a.k.a. St. Petersburg). There aren’t many cultural opportunities in Soviet Russia, especially for Jews, and not much encouragement from his immediate relatives either. His brother left home years ago to become a professional figure skater, his grandmother knows too much about the KGB to encourage drawing attention to oneself, and his mother has grown more paranoid and eccentric since his father’s death. But artists must do art, and Yevgeny defies all warnings to participate in an art show hosted by his friend Mark Baskin. It’s a very small show – no bigger than the average Soviet apartment – but Mark has promised that Americans will be there. And as everyone knows, Americans have money. 

As it turns out, only one American shows up, and as a student, she’s not rolling in dough. Her name is Libby, and right off the bat she tells Yevgeny she won’t marry him. She turned down five guys already, understanding that they’re more interested in getting to America than spending a blissful life with her. But the two are unmistakably attracted to each other and in time romance blooms, along with soviet-style obstacles to love. Can Yevgeny even get out of the USSR? His friend Mark tries to emigrate to Israel and later ends up dead in an unfortunate “accident.” Their last conversation is an argument that ended with Yevgeny shouting, “You always say that I’m scared. [Libby] always says that I’m lying. Who’s not scared in Russia? Who doesn’t lie? How else are we supposed to get by?”

His story has some humorous rom-com misunderstandings and does come to a happy conclusion, but there’s real suffering along the way, appropriately illustrated in tones of black, white, and gray. It’s always winter, never Christmas. Even though the nightmare days of Stalin were over before Yevgeny comes on the scene, the drab, restricted monotony of life under communism is unmistakable. The final page spread, of a plane lifting into the clouds with him in it, are like a breath of clean air.

Considerations:

• Language: A small amount of coarse language, such as the a- word and grandma’s frequent use of “schmuck” to describe Comrade Brezhnev.

Bottom Line:  A sometimes humorous, often grim, always deeply-felt and well-rendered account of love and suffering.

Related Reading From Redeemed Reader

• Reviews: Other books by Eugene Yelchin are Breaking Stalin’s Nose, Arkady’s Goal, The Haunting of Falcon House, and Spy Runner. He co-authored The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge with M. T. Anderson.
• Reviews: Putin vs. Zelinsky: The Russo-Ukrainian War shows there’s not much difference between Russian leaders then and now.
• A Resource: You’ll find more books relating to communism and the cold war in our 20th Century Booklist.

You may purchase I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This from Amazon