I only finished this book out of pure spite. It started off fine, but I couldn’t get behind the dark humour, crassness, and how the male characters treat woman as sex organs that should be ready to please them at their will. The characters felt flat to me and I ended up feeling like I knew nothing about them in the end. The book also has a very detached feeling, so it’s not the kind of book that is meant to pull at your heart strings and make you feel the despair of war. It feels more like you’re passively watching two characters go on an adventure.

Also there was one scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. The two main characters played a part in “freeing” these young girls from being raped from German soldiers. But right after they were making comments about which girl they wanted to “have dibs on.” Like it just felt very tone deaf to for these guys (16 and 18) talk about wanting to be sexual with these girls (around 12-14) right after hearing all the sexual trauma they JUST went through. There was also a part where Kolya asked why the girls didn’t leave or why they chose to say…As if they had much of a choice.