Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Book One

City of Thieves by David Benioff:
  This is outside the genre I usually read, an interesting way to kick start my fifty book challenge.  I enjoyed the book, although it should have come with a heavier than it appears warning. 

Characters:
City of Thieves lacks in plot, but makes up for these short comings with two beautifully well written characters, Lev and Kolya.

Lev Beniov:  
The insecure son of a poet Lev is cautious, cynical, and a survivor.  Throughout the novel he is searching for himself among the destruction of his homeland.

Kolya:
The outwardly confident, but secretly insecure soldier who helps guide Lev towards maturity.  He appears perfect in the beginning, the ideal of what Lev wants to be, but as Lev matures he sees Koyla for what he is under his confident facade.

Recommendation:
I had my complaints about the novel, but overall it was a good read.  This book's target audience is boys age 17 to 30 and would be an excellent read for that demographic.  I would not recommend for anyone under the age of 14 due to explicit content.  Anyone interested in a coming of age story or the dramas that surround world war II outside of the Holocaust will enjoy this book.

Stars:
7 out of 10

Plot:
The plot is simple yet boarders on unbelievable.  The two main characters, Kolya and Lev Beniov are arrested early in the novel for looting and army desertion, crimes that carry a death sentence.  Rather than being shot for their petty crimes the pair are introduced to an NKVD general who demands they find a dozen eggs for his daughters wedding cake within the week in exchange for their lives.  What follows is a dramatic quest for eggs across the war torn USSR.

[spoilers begin]

As the unlikely pair searches through the war ravaged Leningrad for the eggs it soon becomes apparent to the characters that there are no eggs to be found in the city and the next best course of action is to continue their search beyond the enemy German lines.  This seems an unnecessary and extremely risky next move to a the reader, especially after the author admits farmers are able to enter the city and sell their wares at a local black market.
A reader who overlooks this unbelievable opener will be further disillusioned when the to protagonists get hopelessly lost and discover a convenient cabin in the woods, filled with scantly clad women.  The heroes soon learn they have discovered an away from home harem used by local German officers.  This convenient shelter comes complete with food and more information than the protagonists can use.  Once Lev and Kolya are adequately fed and rested the Germans make an appearance, only to be killed by the partisans who happen to chose the night Lev and Kolya are in greatest danger to launch an attack that they had been organizing for months.  After Kolya shots a few insults in Russian these severely guarded saboteurs accept the pair as genuine Russians and include them in their plans to assassinate a high ranking German.
Once the group stumbles upon the particular German the saboteurs have been hunting for months Lev manages to deliver the fatal blow and save the lives of Kolya and the female partisan/love interest, Vika, obtaining the dozen eggs in the process.  The three manage to escape and Vika disappears into the night.
Lev and Kolya return home, miraculously within the week, eggs in hand, only for Kolya to be shot and die in a stiff and unemotional scene.  

[spoilers end]

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