During World War II, two young men find themselves caught in the crosshairs of various factions in the occupied Galician city known to Poles as Lwów and to Ukrainians as L’viv.
Seventeen-year-old Tolya is a half Polish/half Ukrainian sniper in the Soviet Army stationed in the contested territory, where he must keep his Polish heritage a secret or risk his life. Aleksey is a charismatic Ukrainian nationalist whose father was a celebrated freedom fighter. The narrative jumps back and forth between Tolya in 1944, following the Soviet liberation of the city from Germany, and Aleksey three years earlier, with German forces poised to invade the city following the Soviets’ initial retreat. Their paths cross in 1944 when, in a split-second decision, Tolya shoots his unit’s political officer and Aleksey’s squad of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army rescues him at the behest of a mysterious informer within the Soviet ranks. Following a subsequent betrayal within his own squad, Aleksey goes on the run with Tolya, setting up a complex plot full of double crosses and unexpected alliances. The narrative’s nonlinear structure is effective at building suspense and garnering sympathy for its protagonists, though some confusion over who is fighting whom is warranted in this complicated slice of history that does not shy away from depicting scenes of violence and torture.
Deftly explores poignant questions about the nature of loyalty in desperate circumstances. (historical note, map, list of military and paramilitary forces, list of characters, author's note) (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-31352-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
A blended family seeks a fresh start in a new home.
Tom’s mother believes that the family may have finally found happiness. After years of dating losers, she’s finally settled down with a nice guy—and that nice guy, Jay, happens to have a daughter, Nia, who is just a little older than Tom. The new family has moved into a nice new house, but Tom can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. They discover a strange message written on the wall when they are stripping the old wallpaper, and there’s clear evidence that the previous owners had installed locks on the exteriors of the bedroom doors. Those previous owners happen to live a little farther down the street, and Tom quickly becomes obsessed with their teenage daughter, Amy, and the secrets she’s hiding. This obsession unfortunately becomes a repetitive slog involving many pages of Tom’s brooding and sulking over the same bits of information while everyone tells him to move on. Readers will be on everyone’s side. But then, a blessed breath of fresh air: The perspective shifts to Amy, and readers learn in spectacularly propulsive fashion exactly what she’s hiding. Regret and intrigue blend perfectly as Amy divulges her secrets. Alas, we return to navel-gazing Tom for the book’s final pages, and everything ends with a shrug. Main characters default to White.
A crackerjack thriller done in by its own dopey protagonist. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72823-189-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
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Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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