This book is part of that tired, old genre, “Oh, You Thought WWII was Bad? You Have NO Idea.” Yes, truly horrifying, awful things happened in WWII, but here they’re played for shock more than anything else, as if cannibalism and torture and rape were less tragedy and injustice and more spectacle and opportunities for shallow, serendipitous “heroism.” Not to mention, the prologue frames the book as a fictionalization of events in the life of the author’s grandfather, which one must actually google to find out is it’s own fiction. In short, a fairly self-focused and self-exultant perspective.

I will say, the story was plotted and paced well, even gripping in spite of the exploitative use of fictionalized historical pain and tragedy. And I loved the absurdity of a mission to find a dozen eggs. But the main characters felt flat, as did my feelings toward them; it was hard to care one way or another about their success. And such a non-empathic depiction of human suffering, especially with regard to historical events, was off-putting.