A review by _ridley_mars
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Reading this book is like getting a Russian prison tattoo, needling things into you that you’ll never forget. “Bread, onions and soap are all you need to live,” one woman’s prisoner father says and despite all the violence, cruelty and poverty, Russians cling to the promise of communism and how it was intended to cure injustice and take care of everyone. The utter dejection and romanticism of martyrdom shows the relentless force of Russian psychology, and how people who expect so little endure anything.