同志少女よ、敵を撃て

I'm not normally one for historic fiction but I felt drawn to this novel. I kept hearing a lot of praise for it and finally picked up a signed copy in the store. I was a little aprihensive if it would be good or not but I'm so happy to say it's worth all the praise.

The writing is really good. The story and characters are strong all the way through and there's even multiple sprinkles of foreshadowing, which I almost never see in a Japanese novel.

Aisaka has clearly done his research and depicts a grusomely truthly tail about war.

There is a LOT of military vocabulary and kanji in this book. I read it along with the audiobook and had to refer to Wikipedia for the history elements a few times, but it was a good challenge.

Absolutely amazing book.

There were so many military terms, talks of strategy, and references to weapons and military vehicles I was unfamiliar with but that did not stop me from thoroughly enjoying and appreciating this book. Basically, you don't have to be a war buff to appreciate the toll that war takes on an individual. This book confronts a lot of difficult questions of what it means to be a woman in the military and crushes the notion of patriotic exceptionalism and the idea of being a "war hero". I don't think it treads a lot of new grounds in terms of it being a story about war, but it is a captivating read nonetheless. To those that are more familiar with the history of the the second World War, especially the Russian side, there might be some artistic liberties taken but I don't think the book intends to be a 1:1 recounting of the war (there seems to be a lot of research done so I don't want to discount that but I did want to point this out for people expecting pure historical accuracy).

TW: Rape and the realities many women on the Russian and German side faced during the war. It isn't presented in an exploitative way (i.e. not using it as cheap method for characters to encounter tragedy and overcome it, nor it is excessively detailed) but rather it is used to capture the harsh reality of being a women in this setting and illustrates why it is so common during war. There is reasoning for why it occurs but the story never tries to justify these heinous acts nor does it try to hide them from the reader.