The first time they meet, he follows her onto a bus, and when she refuses to get off at her stop, he continues to stay on the bus, watching her. Throughout the first 500 pages of this book, I would sometimes think to myself, “Eh, he’s kinda horrible for doing that, but it was the 1940s, so what can I say.” There were little things that I let slide. An obscenely controlling rapist framed as a love interest. Which brings me to how this book is such a trashfire.Īlexander is the worst. It’s so gruesome, and I think it works great as a book about war rather than a book about romance. However, the atmosphere of the book and the starvation and sickness that the characters endured was so tangible that it was almost unbearable to read at certain points. The setting is excruciatingly real and well-done, provided that I’m not an expert on Russian WWII history and can’t vouch for the historical accuracy. The first 500 pages of this book set up to be a 3-4 star book. See my original Twitter thread for live reactions/extended thoughts: With bombs falling and the city under siege, Tatiana and Alexander are drawn inexorably to each other, but theirs is a love that could tear Tatiana’s family apart, and at its heart lies a secret that could mean death to anyone who hears it.Ĭonfronted on the one hand by Hitler’s vast war machine, and on the other by a Soviet system determined to crush the human spirit, Tatiana and Alexander are pitted against the very tide of history, at a turning point in the century that made the modern world.TW// rape, sexual abusive, violence, controlling partners, domestic abuse, suicide mention The family suffers as Hitler’s army advances on Leningrad, and the Russian winter closes in.
On that fateful day, Tatiana meets a brash young man named Alexander. For the Metanov family, for Leningrad and particularly for Tatiana, life will never be the same again. The routine of their hard impoverished life is shattered on 22 June 1941 when Hitler invades Russia. Two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha, share the same bed, living in one room with their brother and parents. Leningrad 1941: the white nights of summer illuminate a city of fallen grandeur whose palaces and avenues speak of a different age, when Leningrad was known as St Petersburg. A magnificent epic of love, war and Russia from the international bestselling author of TULLY and ROAD TO PARADISE
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