Gal has written a haunting, gut-wrenching account of her mother’s life in Stalin’s Ukraine. In carefully-measured prose, she recreates the daily lives of those who suffered—and endured.

Valentina Gal has written a remarkably, delightfully visual story… an introduction to the experience of the powerless. Her focus on the little things, the everyday concerns, doesn’t trivialize the suffering of the many, or the injustices all experienced. Valentina tells us the story from the bottom up.

[Philipovna] describes how in the early 1930s, tactics of deliberate starvation and denial of basic rights were used to force the people of Ukraine to surrender to the Stalin regime… told through the eyes of a young girl who witnessed the brutal results of what has been called a “crime against humanity.” This book illustrates the fragility of human rights and how such rights can easily be obliterated by corruption and power yet it is a very accessible and exciting read.

This is a hard story to read, sorrowful and unrelenting in the inhumanity inflicted on the Ukrainian people. Not many survived, and it is hard to imagine how the Ukrainian people fought to survive under such extreme conditions. This book is a loving daughter’s memorial to her mother.