Prompt – A book with gold, silver or bronze in the title.
Medium – Audiobook (full disclosure, I listened to 23/30 hours of the book – see below!)
About the Book – The first in a trilogy of books, this book by Paullina Simons is set in WW2 Russia, commencing at the start of 1941 and the German aggression towards the USSR. The story follows Tatiana, a seventeen-year-old who lives in a communal living facility with her family, and Alexander, a lieutenant in the Red Army. Tatiana and Alexander meet one day at a bus stop in Leningrad whilst she is out to get food for her family, and this starts a series of events which involve her family, as the war progresses and the situation in Leningrad gets more and more grim.
My Rating – 2/10. Unpopular opinion coming up! I picked this book because it was one which had 4.3 stars on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, so I thought it was a fairly safe bet for a good book. However, 23 out of 30 hours in to the audiobook, I gave up. If you like really romantic books, you may get on better with this than I did, but I just found it too mushy and sentimental. Also, let’s just talk about the problematic love interest. Alexander Belov is, I reckon, one of the most nasty pieces of work I have ever read about. He is very tall, manly and strong but on the first day of meeting Tatiana, he basically stalks her across Leningrad so he can find out where she lives. Early in the book, we find he is in a relationship with Tatiana’s sister, and he seems to have no issue with cheating on her with her 17-year-old sister (Tatiana). He is possessive and jealous, showing signs of emotional abuse as he treats her terribly if she wants to help other people or even talks to members of the opposite sex. He seems obsessed by the idea of taking her ‘first kiss’ or her virginity. He often speaks violently towards her, and although he saves her from a number of circumstances, his infantilisation of her (at one point, he refers to her as his ‘child bride’) is just a bit creepy.
The other things that turned me off this book were the copious, repetitive sex scenes. Seriously… the amount of detail that the author went into, it was almost like she was writing a sex guide. The main characters seemed to be having sex about five or six times a day – by the end I just found myself wondering whether they just didn’t have anything better to do (answer – seems not). Tatiana, whilst not as unlikeable as Alexander, was deeply irritating in places – she was constantly seeking his approval, couldn’t work out what she wanted and then followed Alexander around like a puppy. She is convinced she is going to follow him into war and does so – I spent that part of the book shouting at her that he just wasn’t worth it! In the end, I just had to give up at 23 hours. I was fed up of the teenage angst, the borderline domestic abuse and the constant sex.
Would I read it again? NO! I have already returned it to audible!
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