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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
WWII Leningrad violence; starvation deaths; a brutal climactic scene
Language
Very heavy
Extremely strong language throughout; Benioff's characters speak with unfiltered wartime frankness
Sexual Content
Some
Brief adult content; Kolya's approach to life includes casual encounters
Substance Use
Barely any
Some drinking in the wartime setting
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological weight of wartime survival; the friendship that sustains it; the brutal climax and what it costs
What this book is about
Lev Benioff, seventeen, is arrested looting a German paratrooper's body. His cellmate is Kolya—a charming, reckless deserter. Rather than execution, they're given a mission by a colonel: find a dozen eggs in a besieged city where people are starving. Their quest through the Nazi-encircled Leningrad and the countryside beyond is one of the great buddy stories in contemporary fiction—funny, brutal, and culminating in an act of terrible violence that is both inevitable and shocking.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Extremely strong language throughout
A brutal climactic scene of wartime violence
Starvation and atrocity in the siege setting
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