This was beautiful, in a haunting way. A few times throughout this novel the narrator, Ana, mentioned that people in America didn't really know/care what was going on during the violent split of what used to be Yugoslavia...and I realized she was completely right. I was very young during the war and genocide itself, but it was never something covered in school as I went through. So I did some research while reading. This book, and my extra reading, was hugely eye-opening. The crimes committed during this series of war were horrifying on a level that should have been as equally recognized worldwide as other genocides and war crimes have been (Holocaust and Rwanda, for example). But as for this book, it was an emotional reading experience. I thought the narrator was perfectly rendered, both her voice as a child as later, as an adult. The mix of past and present tense wove together smoothly and was the exact right style for this type of story. The experiences were written with reality and feeling and, while I don't think anyone on the outside can really understand an experience like Ana's, the author brought it to life so effectively. The difficult parts, her parents deaths, were handled with a matter of factness that made them all the more heartbreaking - viewed through the eyes of a child. The relationships (at the Safe House, with her godparents, with Brian) were rendered with truth in their closeness and also the detachment Ana felt throughout the changes in situation. And I think Luka was a perfect grounding character for the story/plot created here. Although this was fiction, I have read interview with the author where she talks about the stories she was told by friends in Croatia that gave rise to this novel and those friends approval of her retelling. I agree. I think she captured all the elements of this turbulent and horrific time the best a person could have in a fictional telling. Very well done.