This is just the second book I've read about the Soviet takeover of Baltic nations, the subsequent deportation of millions of people to Siberia for being seen as "Anti-Soviet" and the years of forced slavery in work camps not unlike the concentration camps most American middle schoolers learn about in Europe. Stalin's reign of terror cost nearly 20 million lives and 1/3 of the indigenous populations in Baltic nations and yet until college I'd never even heard of these events. Given that the truth was taboo until the early 1990s and even today many deny the deportations and deaths even occurred, it's possibly no wonder. Combine that with the fact that America and Russia were allies during WWII so while American troops helped liberate concentration camps containing Jewish people, their allies, the Russians, were detaining, deporting, and murdering Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians in droves for political gain.

This book is not a history lesson, although it certainly can bolster what you already may know about these historical events, but rather an Anne Frank-esque look at the depravity of humanity seen alike in the Jewish holocaust. The characters become real because you know in some sense they were and Lena becomes the perfect narrator, stretching between hopeful naivete and hopeless despair as more and more of her life is stripped from her.

The novel's message is, I believe, one of hope and family that can be found when faced with pure and wicked evil, which is something that perhaps is sorely needed these days.