Part psychological thriller, part historical fiction, this book was not at all what I expected. You should avoid reading reviews if possible because too many give away too much, but to give a general idea, the novel begins in Estonia in 1992, where an old woman, Aliide Truu, lives alone in the count...
60. PURGE, BY SOFI OKSANENThe last of Tytti’s recommendations. She warned me it contained sexual violence, but I still wasn’t quite ready for the graphic descriptions and sadistic details. Still, a very interesting book, if you have the stomach for it.Synopsis: Aliide, an old Soviet occupancy surviv...
I had to take a break as I was reading Sofi Oksanen's When the Doves Disappeared to read up on Estonia during World War II. It's the first book I've read that's set in the Baltic, let alone in the Baltic during the war. I didn't know, for example, that Estonia had been an independent country before ...
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for providing me with an egalley copy of the book for review. I was in Tallinn, Estonia a couple months ago for the first time and fell in love with the country. It’s so rich in culture and history, yet it’s sad to see that much of the world doesn’t pay too m...
This novel reached out and grabbed hold of me and didn't let go until the end. It's an exploration of individual choices, mistakes, and cruelties on a background of war and revolution. The individual characters are complex and compelling, if not quite sympathetic. Before I started it, I knew a li...
Synopsis:You can call this book a tale of two sisters and indeed, it reminded me of all these folk songs about sibling rivalry. Ingel and Aliide, two Estonian peasant girls, had a very bad luck of falling for the same German boy. Ingel was very pretty, even beautiful, and whatever she did, she did i...
A chilling and sometimes graphic story of both the Soviet occupation of Estonia and the criminal enterprises that flourished after the fall of the Soviet Union.
I first heard about Sofi Oksanen's Purge through Willa's blog, and as soon as I read her review of it I knew I had to read it for myself. Finally, almost four months later, I managed to get my hands on a copy. Set in Estonia during the 1940s and 1990s, it is the story of two women who have both su...
I have an affinity to books where the characters outshine the storyline. Such volumes craft a distinct memory that never seems to fade for years creating an imaginary bond with those characters; experiencing their pain and suffrage through your smallest nerves.Zara and Aliide will never die away fro...
Translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers. Dedication - The walls have ears, and the ears have beautiful earrings. - Paul-Eerik RummoThis is the second book I have handled this year that has a rough cut on the pages (the other one was The Man Who Loved Books Too Much). Is this a growing trend?Try a...
Log in with Facebook 
