Between Shades of Gray

This book turned out to be both better and worse than I expected.
I started out with really high expectations, hoping that with a theme such as it had. a young artist deported to Siberia in 1941 under Stalin's orders, would result in a really great read. I was expecting a strong piece of heart-wrenching writing that'd be like a window into the lives of some of the people who had to go through the hell of WWII. I didn't think it was too much to expect, which is why after the first few pages I was a little perturbed. There is something about the style of writing that doesn't sit well with me. I found myself reading a story that would've blown me away with its pain and brutality if it had only been written better. I was so disappointed, in fact, that if I were the type to put down books easily I'd have put this one down.
That is not to say that it's a bad book though, because the story was an interesting one. That is where the book was better than I expected – considering how much the style of writing unsettled me, I hadn't expected to like the story told, the bare happenings depicted. Yet I found that I liked them, that I found potential in it.
Overall, a book that could have been better, but isn't so bad if you expect little from it.