I liked this book a lot! This is not an unfamiliar story; the atrocities and depravations are similar to Night by Eli Weisel, Defiance by Nechama Tec, or The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo. What is interesting about this book is the historical facts and the characters. And lets face it, this book got a boost from having a title easily confused with the popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The author says of one person attending the wrong book discussion, "he may have come for a spanking, but he left with a book about a piece of history that was hidden for more than half a century and he now knows that the Baltics are different than the Balkans. For me, the mix-up is a victory." 
 "A tiny sliver of gold appeared between shades of gray on the horizon." pg 336 
 Quote from: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/1527785...