"A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is." 
 I consumed the first half of this novel. Or perhaps it consumed me. One second I was picking it up with mild interest, the next I was gone, disappearing into a world of jasmine flowers, ice cream, rosebud dresses and beautiful soldiers. It only took one page, and I was hooked. I fell completely, deeply and helplessly in love with this story - exactly as Tatiana and Alexander fell in love with each other. 
 Simons has managed to make the desperation crawl through the pages and onto my skin; the character's sense of despair was as haunting as the world they lived in. The decay of Russia, the scarcity of food, the lack of safety, and the soldier who wanted to protect his girl from it all, but was not able to - I was touched. 
 The pages flew by, turning themselves, and left me feeling empty and alone each time I had to put the book down in order to work, eat, write or live. I thought about this book constantly. It was so black, so dreary, so grimly poetic - and yet I couldn't resist it. I couldn't put it down. 
 "Not bombs nor my broken heart can take away from me walking barefoot with you in jasmine June through the Field of Mars." 
 I thought I knew how the book would end, but of course I didn't. Everything happened too fast, and what I thought was the ending turned out only to be the beginning of the end. And somehow, things changed with that. The story lost its pace, its nerve, leaving my heart behind. Tatiana and Alexander's future started to brighten, and the story shattered. 
 (view spoiler)[I fully understand that Tatiana and Alexander needed to fall into each others arms. They needed the days in Lazarevo in order to keep hanging on to the tragedy that were their lives. They needed a ring, some sort of solid promise in the midst of a world of uncertainty. They needed sex, they needed a honeymoon paradise; but the story didn't. 
 As it turned out, when everything finally came together, the story fell apart. At least for me. Page after page was made up by kisses, fights, golden rings, summer days in a wooden shed, and splashing water. Perhaps it was beautiful. But it was also generic. 
 And then, afterward, trouble came again. And again. And again by tenfold. Simons lost her pace, and I lost my heart. While I still cared about the characters, while I still wondered and read on, my heart wasn't in my throat anymore. The desperation was gone. (hide spoiler)] 
 The first part of this love story is perhaps the most powerful thing I've read in a while. Alexander crossed the street for Tatiana, never breaking his gaze, and she waited, wondered, wanted. The scene was astonishingly simple and yet impossibly beautiful. If only the rest of the book could follow Alexander's purposeful stride.