city of thieves, by david benioff
historical fiction, war, adventure | teen audiences | 5 stars

this is a story set during the nazi siege of leningrad (if you’re not familiar with it, it was brutal and long (one of the longest in history) and a lot of people died because of it). due to the siege, nobody has much in terms of food and other necessities and lev beniov gets arrested for looting (grabbing food and drinks and a knife from a dead german paratrooper) and thrown into a cell together with kolya, a deserter.

they would’ve/should’ve been executed but instead, the two of them are given the chance to save their lives by going out into the city to find eggs for a high ranking soviet colonel so his daughter could have a wedding cake (i mean… can you see the total absurdity of this? it’s world war two and it’s the fucking siege of leningrad! but somehow, this perfectly encapsulates the behaviour of some people and how they’re living in totally different realities and out of touch with the real world). so lev and kolya have to venture and hunt for eggs in a city deprived of food and literally all supplies and if they find them and bring them back, their lives will be spared.

(funny thing about kolya - he deserted because he was horny.)

their hunt takes them behind enemy lines where they encounter russian girls kept there for the entertainment of german soldiers, some cannibals and vika, a sniper with whom lev falls in love/lust with.

the plot might sound bleak and brutal and dark, and it really really *is*. but, there’s humour in the way lev tells his tale (and he’s the type of character who makes for a great story teller) and when it’s juxtaposed with the sheer brutality of the rest of the book, it makes you laugh just a little bit harder than it maybe should.

the core of the story is the developing friendship between lev and kolya - they’re two boys/men who never met before but during this mission they bond and get close and develop this very tangible friendship that makes your cold lil heart melt. they’re both so painfully human, lev is jewish and kolya is a cossack, and they’re very different people, but they’re in this *together*.

vika is a badass female character and i will always love those, but even though i am a shipper at heart, the lev/kolya friendship was what really stayed with me. this adventure they embarked on against the backdrop of war and famine and enemy soldiers and general brutality of war seems pointless and it is pointless and that’s what makes it so much worse but they can’t get out of their skins so they do what they must to survive, which is a powerful human instinct.

i highly rec this if you want three dimensional, fleshed out and fully developed characters tied together into a thrilling plot. this is a war story, but it’s not about the war, it’s about the people and connections that tie them together and growing up/coming of age in the middle of a damn siege.