I had to give myself some time after finishing this book to let everything kind of sink in. This book left me feeling very depressed and emotionally spent. I was upset. I felt like after reading the whole book and experiencing the outrage, devastation and hopelessness of the events described I deserved a more happy ending. The ending was luke warm and didn't deliver any punch compared to the rest of the book. After thinking about the book all night while trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep I have come to appreciate the experience. The emotions I felt were so powerful and at times I couldn't read fast enough. The sadness I felt was overpowering, I just wish the happy times described in the book were delivered with the same intensity. Some parts in the book were slow for me and I found the foreign words and names interrupted the flow in my reading at times. I know the language added to the book's "texture" and made it more realistic, but I felt like sometimes all the listing of people or places was a little too much and I found myself just skipping over them to get back to the story. This book goes in the list of some others that I have read that have changed me in some way and have become a part of my soul. I see some things differently than I did before. Great book.