If you are prepared to suspend your disbelief over the plot, you will find a novel of moral ambiguity, comradeship, and a coming of age where the young Lev must face up to the harsh realities of war, where survival is the only objective and casual brutality is a way of life. The harshness of life in the city is portrayed in a natural, non-sensational way which makes the careless violence experienced throughout the book more shocking.
The characters are well drawn, and the book is has an immediacy which draws you in. Their search through the ruins of Leningrad and behind German lines to try to achieve their aim forms the story.
However, instead of being given the death penalty, he is paired up with Kolya, who has been arrested for desertion, and given four days in which to find a dozen eggs for the General’s daughter’s wedding cake. Lev, seventeen years old, is caught looting a dead German. It is 1941, and the siege of Leningrad is at its height.
