My thanks to #BookishFirst for this gift book. I regrettably did not get it read until several months after receiving it. This book was selected by my book club after it read The Tattooist of Auschwitz. I actually liked it better than The Tattoist... That is partially because I am getting burnt out on WWII books; book club has read several in the past several months. I appreciated the change of setting to a Siberian gulag in the late 1940s - early 1950s. Although the setting was stark, this book met my need for something more hopeful after reading so many books that left little or nothing to be hopeful about. The main character, Cilka, is strong, but isolates herself for fear of revealing her past. Through the kindness and respect of other’s she makes the journey to accepting herself. I had previously read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (which was a slog), but felt I learned so much more about the gulags from this book.