Wow! What a book. This book tells the stories, in transcribed monologues, of ordinary Russian women who fought in WW2 ...as soldiers, engineers, snipers, resistance fighters, nurses...and fought in a way I think was quite unique for women at the time. I had never heard about this before and I was truly shocked and horrified by what these women lived through and the trauma they carried within themselves for the rest of their lives. It truly is a woman’s view of fighting in a war....not as a wife or mother at home but actually on the front line. One of the saddest things is that these women carried their memories and traumas in silence, largely within themselves, in all the subsequent years and their voices were never heard. The book is told in very short stories, each told by one woman, telling her own story. It is the release you feel the women have in telling these stories that is the most wonderful part of the book. It is like a floodgate has been opened. That and the little moments of humanity and love that shine through in the darkest of days...But it is true too that the horror and inhumanity I read of here is very disturbing. What kept me reading was what Alexievich was trying to do...and that is to tell the truths about these women’s lives that are so close to being forgotten and made invisible. These are hugely important stories. The book is just the most amazing, upsetting and affecting history book I have ever read. Utterly a five star read in every way.