DNF
I was very excited to read this book after spotting it on the NEW table in a local bookstore. With the tagline, “Putin hates it,” how could I not be interested?
Released as fan fiction and then formally published in Russia in 2021, this book became a sensation on Tiktok and gained widespread popularity with Russian-speaking readers. The Russian government took notice and, along with other popular books and content about LGBTQ characters and themes, banned it. The government claimed that it violated a new law passed banning any reference to LGBTQ themes in Russian society. Stores and websites removed it from their shelves and the authors were slandered in the press. Since then, it has been translated into English and was released worldwide this year.
Yura and Volodya’s friendship and eventual romance is told in flashbacks, starting with Yura’s return to the ruins of Camp Barnswallow, the pioneer camp he attended as a child and later as a teenager. In flashbacks to the mid-1980s, Yura is a surly sixteen-year-old forced to attend his final year of pioneer camp, outside Kharkiv, Ukraine, a summer camp for children of communist party members. Although he loved camp as a child, Yura is sick of the rules and routine he so loved as a child. To avoid getting kicked out of camp after causing a minor incident, Yura is tasked with helping new counselor Volodya, nineteen, with directing the play about young Soviet heroes.
I read about fifty pages and stopped. The story is interesting but the dialogue is unbearable. It felt as if I were reading a children’s book. Yes, Yura is a teenager but none of the characters possess a sliver of nuance, not even the adults. It seemed as if every verbal exchange was done while shouting. I’m disappointed as it looked like an interesting story, but the awkward dialogue and abundance of side stories about other campers and counselors was too distracting for me to continue.
