I realised, when I started reading this, that I know NOTHING about Czechoslovakia during WWII (or really anything at all, actually).

This novel is gorgeously written, and the dreamlike vignettes that make up the first part left me with wispy, barely understood fragments of the larger story - entirely intentionally I feel, as it gives the reader the same half truths, and distorted reality of the narrator while he tries to understand his parents' past.

As the story unfolds and gains increasing clarity as the pages progress, the truth of this family's trauma under Nazi occupation is laid out. Operation Anthropoid was used as the central conceit around which the romance was built, and while this isn't am event I knew anything about, it helped to bed the story into reality.

4 stars, because I did find the pacing a bit challenging at times.