'City of Thieves' by David Benioff

City of Thieves, David Benioff (4.0)

There are many historical fiction books that cover WWII (too many?) so it is hard to differentiate oneself and write an original story. Benioff pulls it off by taking (theoretically) his grandfather’s story and embellishing it. My only nit is that it was hard to believe that many things happened to one guy – the embellishment felt a tad overdone. It was easy to put that aside, given Benioff’s great storytelling. The story was riveting, and the characters deftly moved between tragedy and comedy. The main character, Lev Beniov, is a teenager in Leningrad surviving the weather, lack of food and continual Nazi bombing. He is eventually sent on a quest to find a dozen eggs. His perilous journey involves the usual sidekick, love interest and many challenges. I really appreciated how the author was able to accurately depict the horrors they faced and the absolute unforgiving environment they were in without losing the heart of the Russian people. The pace of the book is as frenetic as you’d expect. By the end, I really wanted to know his grandfather’s real story!