I tried to read this book many years ago but was in a newborn baby haze and it was too complicated for my weary brain at the time. Here we are again.
I waited a while to review the book as I really didn't know what I thought of it. After a few weeks I'm going with 3.5 rounded up to 4. At times it was a five, but at times it was boring and I had to force myself to get back to it. To be honest, had it not been for a reading challenge I may have never gone back, but I'm ultimately glad that I did.
There were three narratives running concurrently in the book - one, a young man from the Ukraine writing to the author, two, the story of the author visiting the Ukraine searching for a woman who many or may not have saved his grandfather, and three, an historical story that is intertwined with the stories from the present.
At times hilarious, with a Ukrainian man writing in English with wavering success, and at times deeply moving, exploring the Nazis invasion of the Ukraine, but yes, there were times that I found it boring as well. Eventually the good outweighed the bad.
I waited a while to review the book as I really didn't know what I thought of it. After a few weeks I'm going with 3.5 rounded up to 4. At times it was a five, but at times it was boring and I had to force myself to get back to it. To be honest, had it not been for a reading challenge I may have never gone back, but I'm ultimately glad that I did.
There were three narratives running concurrently in the book - one, a young man from the Ukraine writing to the author, two, the story of the author visiting the Ukraine searching for a woman who many or may not have saved his grandfather, and three, an historical story that is intertwined with the stories from the present.
At times hilarious, with a Ukrainian man writing in English with wavering success, and at times deeply moving, exploring the Nazis invasion of the Ukraine, but yes, there were times that I found it boring as well. Eventually the good outweighed the bad.