Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Thank you for to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me the opportunity to read this book! I first heard about it from a panel discussion at BookCon, and hearing the author talk about it definitely piqued my interest. Overall, I really liked it, and I think it gives an important perspective on WWII that many people don't know about. I certainly didn't know anything about what was going on with Poland and Ukraine during and after WWII, and I imagine most young adults haven't learned about it either.
The story itself is incredibly action-packed, and it is sometimes a bit difficult to keep track of who is who and which side people are on, which is actually not a bad thing, since it seems that what the author is trying to do is to show just how muddy the distinctions were. Almost every character is a traitor in some way, which makes the book incredibly interesting, since there are no particular "good guys" and "bad guys." The one thing the author did that I'm not totally sure worked for me was switching perspectives between Tolya and Aleksey. I liked learning about Aleksey's backstory, and ultimately learning how the various characters from both parts of the story fit together, but I didn't love the way that Tolya's narrative kept getting interrupted. Both perspectives were well done; I'm just not sure they fit together as seamlessly as I would have liked.
Overall, a great book, and I would definitely recommend it to young adults and adults, too!
The story itself is incredibly action-packed, and it is sometimes a bit difficult to keep track of who is who and which side people are on, which is actually not a bad thing, since it seems that what the author is trying to do is to show just how muddy the distinctions were. Almost every character is a traitor in some way, which makes the book incredibly interesting, since there are no particular "good guys" and "bad guys." The one thing the author did that I'm not totally sure worked for me was switching perspectives between Tolya and Aleksey. I liked learning about Aleksey's backstory, and ultimately learning how the various characters from both parts of the story fit together, but I didn't love the way that Tolya's narrative kept getting interrupted. Both perspectives were well done; I'm just not sure they fit together as seamlessly as I would have liked.
Overall, a great book, and I would definitely recommend it to young adults and adults, too!
I am full of surprises.
This may sound self-congratulatory (in which case, you should know better than to think I would ever compliment myself genuinely), or like a worse way of quoting Walt Whitman (which is likely accurate), but it’s true.
For example, even though I subsist off of candy and pizza, like a child with credit card access, I really am a big fan of brussels sprouts.
Another example: I recently moved across the country and went from having about 800 books with me to a couple dozen, and I haven’t even cried about it. Yet.
And finally, I hate to hate things.
I have made my name upon hating things, in truth it’s the only reason anyone follows me on this godforsaken website, but it makes me feel uncomfortable and nervous all the time.
Plus makes opening my notifications feel like walking through a minefield.
All of this is a characteristically long-winded way of saying that I’m bummed I didn’t like this.
But I really just did not.
First off, it SHOULD NOT have been dual perspective. Neither character is particularly distinct or exciting, and it’s genuinely so difficult to keep track of what’s happening at any given time. These characters are in two different places at two different times describing two different conflicts with different ways of addressing different military groups and whatnot in different foreign languages, and and and…
In short, I was confused way more than I wasn’t. And it didn’t take long for me to give up on trying to orient myself and just...force myself on.
Secondly, the pacing was. Strange. It felt like the climax happened way too early (or at least the most exciting part did), and by the end I felt surprised when it had ended without any other real action.
But maybe I missed an entire subplot due to the sheer extent of my confusion.
I wanted to like this very much, as it’s about a unique part of history that isn’t written about often. And in the moments when I had a single clue, it was often immersive and convincing.
But that was like. Four pages total.
Bottom line: Sad face.
-----------
this is a dual perspective historical thriller set in an eastern european city during world war two with ukrainian, polish, russian, and german words and names, which i read half as a physical copy and half as an audiobook.
this is a longer way of saying: i'm confused.
review to come / 2.5 stars
-----------
"historical thriller" sounds like an oxymoron to me but i'm still excited
-----------
judging by the title, it looks like the book me and ilsa co-wrote about may is coming out soon
thanks to the publisher for the arc, which came in a very cool box
This may sound self-congratulatory (in which case, you should know better than to think I would ever compliment myself genuinely), or like a worse way of quoting Walt Whitman (which is likely accurate), but it’s true.
For example, even though I subsist off of candy and pizza, like a child with credit card access, I really am a big fan of brussels sprouts.
Another example: I recently moved across the country and went from having about 800 books with me to a couple dozen, and I haven’t even cried about it. Yet.
And finally, I hate to hate things.
I have made my name upon hating things, in truth it’s the only reason anyone follows me on this godforsaken website, but it makes me feel uncomfortable and nervous all the time.
Plus makes opening my notifications feel like walking through a minefield.
All of this is a characteristically long-winded way of saying that I’m bummed I didn’t like this.
But I really just did not.
First off, it SHOULD NOT have been dual perspective. Neither character is particularly distinct or exciting, and it’s genuinely so difficult to keep track of what’s happening at any given time. These characters are in two different places at two different times describing two different conflicts with different ways of addressing different military groups and whatnot in different foreign languages, and and and…
In short, I was confused way more than I wasn’t. And it didn’t take long for me to give up on trying to orient myself and just...force myself on.
Secondly, the pacing was. Strange. It felt like the climax happened way too early (or at least the most exciting part did), and by the end I felt surprised when it had ended without any other real action.
But maybe I missed an entire subplot due to the sheer extent of my confusion.
I wanted to like this very much, as it’s about a unique part of history that isn’t written about often. And in the moments when I had a single clue, it was often immersive and convincing.
But that was like. Four pages total.
Bottom line: Sad face.
-----------
this is a dual perspective historical thriller set in an eastern european city during world war two with ukrainian, polish, russian, and german words and names, which i read half as a physical copy and half as an audiobook.
this is a longer way of saying: i'm confused.
review to come / 2.5 stars
-----------
"historical thriller" sounds like an oxymoron to me but i'm still excited
-----------
judging by the title, it looks like the book me and ilsa co-wrote about may is coming out soon
thanks to the publisher for the arc, which came in a very cool box
This was a bit confusing to keep track of the jumping timelines when both timelines kept bouncing between similar situations.
I loved this book! I had been looking forward to reading it for so long, and I finally got the chance to read it over winter break. I’ve always been interested in Soviet history, but I actually didn’t know much about how WWII impacted Ukraine, so TRAITOR introduced me to a huge part of history I didn’t previously know.
Amanda McCrina’s writing is so beautiful. She doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of war, but she also portrays the goodness of humanity even in the worst of times. Throughout the book, I was never really sure which characters I could trust; I felt like I was experiencing the story directly through the eyes of the two main characters. It’s a fairly simple plot, but the characters brought so much soul to the book, and it held my attention to the end.
It’s not just a typical “good guys fighting bad guys” story - many of the characters are just teenagers joining the armies to survive, and they often act based on their own convictions rather than their commanders’ orders. Unlike many war novels, this book doesn’t take place on big battlefields; many of the confrontations involve just a few characters, creating conflicts built on personal decisions as well as loyalty to a cause. Neither Tolya nor Solovey is a great hero - they’re both just young boys trying to survive a war and hold onto their humanity. Their stories felt like diaries from real war survivors rather than glamorous fictional stories about legendary war heroes.
The story is dual POV, jumping back and forth between Tolya’s story in 1944 and Solovey’s story in 1941. At first, it felt a little jarring, but I think it was actually a clever decision because it emphasizes the chaos of war. Both boys’ lives were shattered like glass, and the book gives us little fractured shards of their stories. McCrina lets the reader get close enough to Tolya and Solovey to feel their pain, but not close enough to fully know them. I think that’s especially poignant because when we look back on history, we only get little pieces of it. It took me a little while to warm up to the dual POV, but I think it was the right decision.
I also appreciate how McCrina incorporated women into this story. The main plot centers around men, and women don’t appear very often. However, when women are present, they are portrayed as strong, smart, and capable. Many war novels frustrate me because they put men in the center of the action and sideline women by putting them into narrow categories, but McCrina manages to incorporate women into the action. In the first few chapters, I was also afraid that the story would fall into the “women in refrigerators” trope (in which women suffer to further the male protagonist’s character development), but McCrina cleverly avoids this too. (I can’t tell you more without giving spoilers).
The story can be a little bit confusing if you don’t know anything about the history of Ukraine and Poland (like me), but McCrina included a few “author’s notes” to clarify some things, so I would highly recommend reading those and referring to them if you get confused. I don’t think this is a reflection on McCrina’s writing ability - WWII in Ukraine is simply not a history topic that is taught in US schools, and it is a particularly complex subject because the war involved so many groups. TRAITOR is all about how war can be a messy, complicated situation (instead of a black-and-white fight), and I don’t think McCrina could’ve omitted historical details without losing the main point of the story. If people can keep up with Hogwarts or the Grishaverse, they can learn about real history that actually happened.
Overall, this story was unsettling in a thought-provoking way, and I couldn’t put it down. Amanda McCrina is an excellent writer, and I would highly recommend TRAITOR.
Amanda McCrina’s writing is so beautiful. She doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of war, but she also portrays the goodness of humanity even in the worst of times. Throughout the book, I was never really sure which characters I could trust; I felt like I was experiencing the story directly through the eyes of the two main characters. It’s a fairly simple plot, but the characters brought so much soul to the book, and it held my attention to the end.
It’s not just a typical “good guys fighting bad guys” story - many of the characters are just teenagers joining the armies to survive, and they often act based on their own convictions rather than their commanders’ orders. Unlike many war novels, this book doesn’t take place on big battlefields; many of the confrontations involve just a few characters, creating conflicts built on personal decisions as well as loyalty to a cause. Neither Tolya nor Solovey is a great hero - they’re both just young boys trying to survive a war and hold onto their humanity. Their stories felt like diaries from real war survivors rather than glamorous fictional stories about legendary war heroes.
The story is dual POV, jumping back and forth between Tolya’s story in 1944 and Solovey’s story in 1941. At first, it felt a little jarring, but I think it was actually a clever decision because it emphasizes the chaos of war. Both boys’ lives were shattered like glass, and the book gives us little fractured shards of their stories. McCrina lets the reader get close enough to Tolya and Solovey to feel their pain, but not close enough to fully know them. I think that’s especially poignant because when we look back on history, we only get little pieces of it. It took me a little while to warm up to the dual POV, but I think it was the right decision.
I also appreciate how McCrina incorporated women into this story. The main plot centers around men, and women don’t appear very often. However, when women are present, they are portrayed as strong, smart, and capable. Many war novels frustrate me because they put men in the center of the action and sideline women by putting them into narrow categories, but McCrina manages to incorporate women into the action. In the first few chapters, I was also afraid that the story would fall into the “women in refrigerators” trope (in which women suffer to further the male protagonist’s character development), but McCrina cleverly avoids this too. (I can’t tell you more without giving spoilers).
The story can be a little bit confusing if you don’t know anything about the history of Ukraine and Poland (like me), but McCrina included a few “author’s notes” to clarify some things, so I would highly recommend reading those and referring to them if you get confused. I don’t think this is a reflection on McCrina’s writing ability - WWII in Ukraine is simply not a history topic that is taught in US schools, and it is a particularly complex subject because the war involved so many groups. TRAITOR is all about how war can be a messy, complicated situation (instead of a black-and-white fight), and I don’t think McCrina could’ve omitted historical details without losing the main point of the story. If people can keep up with Hogwarts or the Grishaverse, they can learn about real history that actually happened.
Overall, this story was unsettling in a thought-provoking way, and I couldn’t put it down. Amanda McCrina is an excellent writer, and I would highly recommend TRAITOR.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've been reading a number of books set during WWII in the past year and this one covered a part of the war that I knew nothing about--Galicia is a region between Ukraine and Poland and had a history of being a disputed region between the two countries. Then came the Germans and then the Russians and suddenly everyone is an enemy. The story moves back and forth between two POV--Tolya is half Ukrainian and half Polish, and he's surrounded by the Germans on one side and the Russians on the other. His story takes place in 1944. His story is narrated in third-person. The other POV is for Aleksey/Solovey and is narrated in first-person in 1941. However, his path crosses Tolya's in 1944 and as his 1941 story is revealed, you slowly realize what his motivations may be in 1944. This novel is about a bloody war where even good people do terrible things, and the novel takes you through many twists and turns that keep you guessing about the motivations and actions of various characters. I loved how the author made connections between the various characters and it was very cool how various parallels showed up between the two stories. I occasionally got confused by all the various sides and couldn't always remember who a character was without having to go back and figure it out. I didn't realize until the end that there was a character list, so if you do read this book, it would likely be helpful for you to print out the list ahead of time. This book was very well-researched and I ended up learning a fair bit. The author's note at the end that explained some of the various resistance/military groups in the region in more detail was also interesting. One thing I would l like to mention is that younger or more sensitive readers might be disturbed by some of the violence that was described. I would recommend this for older high school students and above.
Thanks to #NetGalley, #AmandaMcCrina, and #MacmillanChildrensPublishingGroup for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to #NetGalley, #AmandaMcCrina, and #MacmillanChildrensPublishingGroup for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
DNF
I struggled to keep the characters straight and to know who's story was being told. There are many who will love this book and I am hopeful they will leave reviews to support this book.
I struggled to keep the characters straight and to know who's story was being told. There are many who will love this book and I am hopeful they will leave reviews to support this book.
I haven't yet finished this one, but I'm having a hard time with it, so going to set it aside for now & hopefully try again later.
Unique WWII perspective. Traitor = survivor. I really enjoyed reading about the Eastern Front.