Book Review of
The Winter Soldier
Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives, at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains, he finds a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single, mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains.
But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon’s scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.
From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.
Lynn's Review
I have mixed thoughts on The Winter Soldier. I wanted to love this book. I picked it up at Magic City Books in Tulsa when I attended an event for Anne Bogel. At that event, I met Curtis and Chelsey of He Reads She Reads. I got to talking to Curtis about our love of nonfiction books and our trouble with good finding fiction that we like. This book had caught his attention, and he pointed it out to Grace and I. After reading the cover of it, I knew that it was a book I wanted to read.
The Winter Soldier is about about a medical student who finds himself on the battle field, in a remote area, during WWI. It weaves together a tale of love, war, hardships, friendships, and more.
The Winter Soldier is set during WWI, which I loved. There are so many books that are set in WWII, but very few set during WWI, so I love finding a good book set during WWI. The writing in this book was great. I found the overall story line a little odd though. Maybe odd is not the right word, more like unrealistic, and I like my fiction to feel like it could actually happen.
This book though was a reminder that I like books to wrap up nicely. Or at least wrap up in a way that doesn’t leave you hanging. This book did not end all wrapped up nicely, and I didn’t really like that. I just didn’t like the ended at all.
The book was also a little pg-13 for me. If you have read it, I would love to hear your thoughts because although I didn’t love the book, I feel like there is a lot to talk about in this book.