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jenweening 's review for:
City of Thieves
by David Benioff
I really enjoyed this book. It takes place during the Seige of Leningrad (St. Petersburg, called Piter) during WWII. Lev and Kolya, a looter and a deserter, respectively, are told their lives will be spared if they can bring back a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a general's daughter. This, in a city where the people are so hungry that they have resorted to boiling down the spines of books to eat the glue, which they call "library candy."
As they seek out these elusive eggs, the reader gets to know 17-year-old Lev, the son of a famous poet who was killed by the NKVD (Russian police), and Kolya, a suave nymphomaniac who seems to keep getting the two of them into trouble. Kolya nearly gets them killed by cannibals in Leningrad, and then gets them lost on the way to Nga. Along the way, they meet girls living in a farmhouse/brothel for the Germans and hear the story of Zoya, a 14 year old girl whose feet were cut off by the Sturnbannfuhrer, Abendroth. They join up with the partisans, a group of militia whose best asset is Vika, a young female sniper, and with whom the desperately awkward Lev falls in love. The group joins up with a group of prisoners in order to get close to Abendroth, and Kolya manages to arrange a chess game between Lev and Abendroth. The scene is intense, but I won't say more to avoid spoilers.
I loved the character of Kolya. He was obsessed with talking about his favourite book, The Courtyard Hound, and Lev quickly figures out that the lines he quotes from the novel are actually his own, and he is testing them out on Lev. He is writing The Courtyard Hound. I love the weakness this shows in him, as he acts very tough all of the time; he uses the imagined author Ushakovo as a defense mechanism, to protect himself from criticism. Outside of his novel-in-progress, he is the picture of confidence, and his terrible jokes, crude comments, and risky behaviour are constantly entertaining, despite the bleakness of the setting. A hilarious character, and, I think, really well developed.
I can't imagine living under seige. Benioff portrays life in Piter and in the surrounding areas as unbearable. The hunger, the cold, and the fear of shell attacks are constant. This novel represents an aspect of WWII that I have very little knowledge of; in Ken Follett's Winter of the World, I learned/read a bit about the Russian front, so this was a nice addition to that.
In all, a really enjoyable read. Despite the depressing subject, it was action packed and funny at times. (When they realize Darling the "chicken" is actually a rooster made me laugh!)
As they seek out these elusive eggs, the reader gets to know 17-year-old Lev, the son of a famous poet who was killed by the NKVD (Russian police), and Kolya, a suave nymphomaniac who seems to keep getting the two of them into trouble. Kolya nearly gets them killed by cannibals in Leningrad, and then gets them lost on the way to Nga. Along the way, they meet girls living in a farmhouse/brothel for the Germans and hear the story of Zoya, a 14 year old girl whose feet were cut off by the Sturnbannfuhrer, Abendroth. They join up with the partisans, a group of militia whose best asset is Vika, a young female sniper, and with whom the desperately awkward Lev falls in love. The group joins up with a group of prisoners in order to get close to Abendroth, and Kolya manages to arrange a chess game between Lev and Abendroth. The scene is intense, but I won't say more to avoid spoilers.
I loved the character of Kolya. He was obsessed with talking about his favourite book, The Courtyard Hound, and Lev quickly figures out that the lines he quotes from the novel are actually his own, and he is testing them out on Lev. He is writing The Courtyard Hound. I love the weakness this shows in him, as he acts very tough all of the time; he uses the imagined author Ushakovo as a defense mechanism, to protect himself from criticism. Outside of his novel-in-progress, he is the picture of confidence, and his terrible jokes, crude comments, and risky behaviour are constantly entertaining, despite the bleakness of the setting. A hilarious character, and, I think, really well developed.
I can't imagine living under seige. Benioff portrays life in Piter and in the surrounding areas as unbearable. The hunger, the cold, and the fear of shell attacks are constant. This novel represents an aspect of WWII that I have very little knowledge of; in Ken Follett's Winter of the World, I learned/read a bit about the Russian front, so this was a nice addition to that.
In all, a really enjoyable read. Despite the depressing subject, it was action packed and funny at times. (When they realize Darling the "chicken" is actually a rooster made me laugh!)