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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
City of Thieves recounts Lev Beniov's experience of the siege of Leningrad. The 17-year-old protagonist is caught outside his residence building after curfew and is labelled a looter. For this crime, as for many others in the wartime city, the usual punishment is death.
Lev is thrown into prison for the night where he meets Kolya, an arrogant, educated, and smooth-talking deserter who becomes his friend over the following days. Though the two expect to be executed, they are spared by a senior NKVD officer who takes their ration cards in exchange for a curfew pass, a few days of liberty, and a dangerous mission.
The two scramble to find what the officer wants before their deadline, leading them into the company of black marketeers, cannibals, partisans, and officers of the Einsatzgruppen.
The novel begins many years in the future, in America, where Lev's grandson asks him about his wartime experiences. So the reader knows the story must end well for the main character, still, the story is gripping as the brutalities of the winter city and wartime Soviet Union are unveiled.
Concentrating on only a few pivotal characters Benioff makes each one of them memorable. He describes dark scenes, truly dark, things that could only happen in wartime, but there is humor and levity as well. And the book is short, it isn't a huge commitment of time or effort.
I kept coming back to the audiobook it was so good, even when I had other things to do. Maybe because there are so few characters, City of Thieves makes an excellent audiobook.
For fiction enthusiasts, I highly recommend this book. I'm a tough audience, but I give it five stars out of five. It's probably the only book I'll rate so highly this year.
There are quite a few adult scenes, bad language, and violence so if you're easily triggered, (t)read cautiously.
Lev is thrown into prison for the night where he meets Kolya, an arrogant, educated, and smooth-talking deserter who becomes his friend over the following days. Though the two expect to be executed, they are spared by a senior NKVD officer who takes their ration cards in exchange for a curfew pass, a few days of liberty, and a dangerous mission.
The two scramble to find what the officer wants before their deadline, leading them into the company of black marketeers, cannibals, partisans, and officers of the Einsatzgruppen.
The novel begins many years in the future, in America, where Lev's grandson asks him about his wartime experiences. So the reader knows the story must end well for the main character, still, the story is gripping as the brutalities of the winter city and wartime Soviet Union are unveiled.
Concentrating on only a few pivotal characters Benioff makes each one of them memorable. He describes dark scenes, truly dark, things that could only happen in wartime, but there is humor and levity as well. And the book is short, it isn't a huge commitment of time or effort.
I kept coming back to the audiobook it was so good, even when I had other things to do. Maybe because there are so few characters, City of Thieves makes an excellent audiobook.
For fiction enthusiasts, I highly recommend this book. I'm a tough audience, but I give it five stars out of five. It's probably the only book I'll rate so highly this year.
There are quite a few adult scenes, bad language, and violence so if you're easily triggered, (t)read cautiously.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book is a gem. I mowed through it in a couple of days. David Benioff's City of Thieves is the best kind of historical fiction - well researched, deftly written, and, at its heart, are characters whose humanity allows the reader to connect to another time and place that was once real.
Lev, a 17-year-old doing what he can to help defend his home city of Leningrad during the German siege in 1942, and Kolya, a wise-cracking, literature-loving, soldier, are picked up by the Russian police for, respectively, looting and deserting. They are then set to the unusual and nearly impossible task of finding a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a powerful colonel's daughter. Their journey treks them across war-torn Leningard and out into its occupied countryside. The action moves quickly and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.
This book swings quickly and often between humor and tragedy. And it is this that gives the story its real appeal. Even while atrocities are going on - cannibalism, rape, torture, and death - people are still people. They feel affection, jealousy, lust, shame, empathy ALONG with feeling afraid, hungry, cold, exhausted. Boys think about girls. They wonder how cowardly or heroic they might look. They worry about rejection and whether or not they will ever grown up. This story isn't just about the horrors of war. Its shows how people retain their humanity in the face of these horrors. And its damn good.
Lev, a 17-year-old doing what he can to help defend his home city of Leningrad during the German siege in 1942, and Kolya, a wise-cracking, literature-loving, soldier, are picked up by the Russian police for, respectively, looting and deserting. They are then set to the unusual and nearly impossible task of finding a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a powerful colonel's daughter. Their journey treks them across war-torn Leningard and out into its occupied countryside. The action moves quickly and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.
This book swings quickly and often between humor and tragedy. And it is this that gives the story its real appeal. Even while atrocities are going on - cannibalism, rape, torture, and death - people are still people. They feel affection, jealousy, lust, shame, empathy ALONG with feeling afraid, hungry, cold, exhausted. Boys think about girls. They wonder how cowardly or heroic they might look. They worry about rejection and whether or not they will ever grown up. This story isn't just about the horrors of war. Its shows how people retain their humanity in the face of these horrors. And its damn good.
You could see that this was a book on Russians written by a non-Russian as it tends to be very stereotypical at times. Still a fun and very touching read. Also, there were chickens involved, hence the 5-Star rating.
What a unique storytelling of WWII. Two Russians are sent on a mission to get 12 eggs in occupied Russia. Each chapter is a story along the journey.
City of Thieves is a coming of age story set in WWII Leningrad. Lev is an awkward half-Jewish teenager, son of a famous poet who disappeared in the political purges. Never fully at ease in Russian society, Lev tries to prove his loyalty as a fire brigade volunteer during the harrowing siege of Leningrad. Desperate for food, he and his friends are confronted by the police while looting the body of a dead German paratrooper. In a chivalrous turn, Lev saves a female companion from arrest, but his friends abandon him. He is thrown into prison with Kolya, a soldier accused of desertion. Kolya is everything that Lev is not, a handsome, larger than life and smooth-talking braggart, who paints himself as an expert on women and Russian literature. The odd pair are summoned by a leader of the secret police who offers them a deal: if they can bring him a dozen eggs to bake a wedding cake for his daughters upcoming wedding, they get their ration cards back (the only source of food in the city) and their freedom, and they are launched on an odyssey through the starving city and war torn countryside.
The story moves through a surreal landscape filled with terrors and absurdities, as the two dodge cannibals, search for chickens, cross enemy lines, and encounter Nazis, partisans, prostitutes and traitors. Under Kolya's tutelage, in one short week, Lev comes of age, finding his courage and confidence. As they travel together Kolya's exaggerations and half- truths are stripped away, Lev's confidence and maturity grows, and they develop a true friendship.
City of Thieves is an exciting adventure, rich in historical and cultural details, filled with suspense and characters who burrow into your imagination. Benioff has created some of the most unique and realistic characters I have read in a long time, and the book has a huge emotional range that runs the gamut from humor to terror to poignancy. The slow, grinding, destruction of the city and it's people is rendered so realistically, you'll find yourself hungry and cold right alongside them. Kolya is the funniest and most charming character I have ever encountered in a book. The book is short and it rolls along at a quick pace, the plot is filled with twists, turns and surprises, and was never predictable. While the subject is gruesome, a current of dark humor runs through the story, keeping it from becoming overly morbid or morose. There is a great deal of off color humor focusing on sex and bodily functions, but it fits the characters and context perfectly.
The story moves through a surreal landscape filled with terrors and absurdities, as the two dodge cannibals, search for chickens, cross enemy lines, and encounter Nazis, partisans, prostitutes and traitors. Under Kolya's tutelage, in one short week, Lev comes of age, finding his courage and confidence. As they travel together Kolya's exaggerations and half- truths are stripped away, Lev's confidence and maturity grows, and they develop a true friendship.
City of Thieves is an exciting adventure, rich in historical and cultural details, filled with suspense and characters who burrow into your imagination. Benioff has created some of the most unique and realistic characters I have read in a long time, and the book has a huge emotional range that runs the gamut from humor to terror to poignancy. The slow, grinding, destruction of the city and it's people is rendered so realistically, you'll find yourself hungry and cold right alongside them. Kolya is the funniest and most charming character I have ever encountered in a book. The book is short and it rolls along at a quick pace, the plot is filled with twists, turns and surprises, and was never predictable. While the subject is gruesome, a current of dark humor runs through the story, keeping it from becoming overly morbid or morose. There is a great deal of off color humor focusing on sex and bodily functions, but it fits the characters and context perfectly.
This was so good I find myself close to speechless. I can't recall the last time I read a book so heartbreaking and so funny, so absurd and so real. The pacing is perfect, the prose is beautiful, and the story is like nothing you have ever read before. Just read it. You won't be sorry.