The last few chapters were so intense and terrifying and disturbing. I was not expecting to hurt this much reading this book. It did take me a little bit to get into the story, mostly because the chapters are just a couple pages, so you really go from POV to POV very quickly. But it was done so well. Didn't make it hard to follow the story at all and it was nice seeing different perspectives. I hate Alfred so much though. Like I passionately hate him. His POV was the most annoying and difficult to read cause I wanted to strangle him 100% of the time.

I wish I had learned about this in class. I literally remember nothing about the Russians and Poland and the Hannibal Evacuation, so this book was really eye opening. We always hear about the Titanic and how many people died, but that was nothing compared to Wilhelm Gustloff where 9000 lives were lost. This book was so sad and heartbreaking. The images you're left with at the end kind of haunt you even after you've finished reading.