I'll be honest...the first half of the book was not all that enjoyable to me. It just kept going around and around and around the same issues and never finding solutions. I started to get bored with it and if I hadn't been reading it for a book club I may have abandoned it. But then there were little snippits of clues that started to hook me and nag at my curiosity. I really wanted explanations. I finally got them in the second half of the book and I'm extremely glad I stuck it out. The last couple of chapters I had to read in privacy because they made me so emotional. I have my bachelors in history and have spent some time studying Russian history so the story of Leningrad was particularly interesting and moving to me. All in all, I ended up loving the book. I'm just an impatient person and it took the author awhile to start making her point. I would fully recommend this book.