For some reason, I went into this book thinking it was going to be about World War II. It is not, but instead about World War I in Russia, at a time just before the Bolsheviks took over. Katya works in a factory making grenades. Her father is away at the war, her brother was injured and sent home and has been gambling away money ever since. Katya is torn between seeing what is actually happening in Russia, and what her father tells her. She eventually joins the first female battalion but is war actually what she thinks it will be?

Lough crafts a story of a girl carving out her own life at a tumultuous time, which I'm sure many of us can relate to.