“In Soviet Kazakhstan, a boy dives into a radioactive lake to impress a girl, causing him to stop growing while she becomes a woman.”
I had no issues with the characters and that is because I didn’t feel the connection towards them. This is a coming-of-age story about Yerzhan. We have the members of his family and his neighbors who are practically family. Therefore he uses family names for the neighbors. I was really confused on who was who out of the side characters they lacked defining traits. I wish there was some form of a family tree. Yes, I could’ve made one myself, but that’s too tedious as a reader to do when one could’ve been provided to me by the publisher.
The atmosphere was my favorite part. This takes place in a remote part of Soviet Kazakhstan, and we are seeing the environmental legacy of the Cold War. The Soviets were testing nuclear weapons in a populated area. Yes, this is a remote rural area with not a whole lot of people, but still there are people there and their bodies were being impacted by these weapons, their animals and livestock and the land around them were all being impacted negatively for the sake of war games. I had no idea this kind of thing was happening or never really thought of it, but the author brought light to what the Soviet government was doing to its citizens.
I did have issues with the writing, but some of that might fall onto the translation as this book is translated from Russian. It is very fast and sporadic. I was having a hard time following the story. I had confusion with the characters as well ,with them, lacking their development.
I think the plot is decent at showing this part of history in a location that most western readers are going to know not much about. I think a lot of people do love a coming-of-age story and seeing how fears can manifest. There’s definitely an audience for this book. It didn’t do a whole lot for me personally, but I do think a lot of the story made sense and that it is an important story to show that certain things our governments might be doing, might not be best for our environment and therefore us as people. I don’t think this is a bad book, but if it does intrigue you, I would recommend looking at the library first.
2.5 out of 5 stars.
Izzy Reads 