This true story is so well written, that I actually thought it was a fiction novel until I read the back description.

The story takes place in a peasant Italy that seems as foreign to me as any tale of antiquity, yet this story takes place during WWII.

I found myself very easily imagining the peasant world described, and the book itself, though it lacks “action”, it is paced in a way that mimics the monotonous rhythm of peasant life.

I was sucked into this world from the first few pages, and was quite sad to let it go at the end.

The story doesn’t have the types of twists and turns or surprise ending that we somewhat expect these days, and it doesn’t have the word games of so many famous writers. What it does have is a very grounded, very relatable, very well described reality and I enjoyed it very much.