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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.