A review by r_reads2winnie
The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

5.0

I loved this book so much! This book made me realize why I love historical fiction. The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh is a middle-grade historical fiction novel about the Holodomor – a man-made famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s. This is a timely and vital story everyone should read. I highly recommend this book.  

The author ingeniously and magically connects the multi-generational family stories in this book. Matthew is bored at home during the pandemic. When he gets grounded, his mother tells him to help his great-grandmother go through the boxes of her belongings. In so doing, he discovers her past – a story of three young girls, Helen, Mila, and Nadiya, during the Holodomor under Stalin. At first, I was confused about which was his great-grandmother, but about halfway through it became clear which girl she was. From that point forward, it was unputdownable. The story is told alternatively between Matthew during the pandemic in New Jersey in 2020 and Helen in Brooklyn and Mila and Nadiya in Ukraine in the 1930s. 

I highly recommend the author’s notes at the end because readers will learn how many events mentioned in the book are actually based on her family story.