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Oct 04, 2012hybrid rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I loved the main character, and Valente has a great grasp of fables and early-20th-century Soviet social structure that give this novel plenty of color. But unfortunately, I went into this hoping for a novel about the interplay of history and myth (i.e., something similar to "Pan's Labyrinth"), only to find that this is actually a pure fairy-tale novel that uses its historical content as window-dressing before crossing over into total dream-logic in the last 60 pages or so. Still a highly recommended book if that's what you're looking for, but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea.