থেকে Utenkovo, Moskovskaya oblast', روسیه، 142862
I really enjoyed this, it was slow-moving and thoughtful and really beautifully written. I loved Farren, I liked the way he took such pleasure from simple things and the beauty of the natural world. He saw the best in everyone and found stuff to be positive about even in the face of overwhelmingly awful circumstances. He was an optimist, and I felt a glow of kindred-spirit-ness with him. I wanted to hang out with him and enthuse about the way the sun lit up the squares of different coloured crops in the paddocks, "like rectangles of paint in a paint box". It was also a really good, realistic exploration of PTSD and how it affected the soilders that came back from WWII (particularly Farren's older brother Danny). Farren and his friend Robbie had a lot of interesting discussions about whether the war was a good or bad thing and why the glorious, patriotic way it was portrayed by the radio and government and so forth was so different to the account given by the people who came back from it. I did find that it dragged on a little bit, however, especially at the end - and I'm a fan of slow, character-driven books without too much action or plot, so I think a fair few of the intended audience (teenagers) would probably find this quite boring.