Length: 384 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
I'd like to give a very special thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company + a heartfelt apology for how long it took me to get this review out. I'm running behind after taking a new job and I'm really sorry!
Trigger Warnings in this book for Death, including Death of a Child, Illness and Gore, Rape and Forced Pregnancy, Racism and Bigotry Against Romani, including Slurs
Lena is at the end of her life. She has seen death and famine, loved and learned the consequences of its power, and lost, so, so much. Her end comes to her at her farm in Wales, surrounded by her son and granddaughter--but it began in Poland.
When Lena was young and sure life could only be what one made it, fates be damned, she wanted to be a doctor. Not only a doctor, but one of the few women accepted to university. With the encouragement of her beloved father, she pursues science and the study of the human body with abandon and hope. A harrowing accident, which leaves her with a limp for the rest of her life, changes everything. Now, she is married to a Polish officer who she does not love, who takes her away to his isolated post, who forces himself upon her, resulting in a pregnancy that forever solidifies her place as a mother and wife, and never that of a woman of medicine. And then, war breaks out.
Reuniting with her family for only a short, peaceful time, Lena and her sister, pregnant by her new husband who accompanies them, her younger brother, her daughter and parents, are forced to relocate to the taiga as second-rate citizens and "enemies of the state". It is there that Lena will come to love someone who is forbidden, a guard who enforces the strict rations and back-breaking work. The great sacrifice she makes for him will change her life, and the lives of those around her, for generations to come.
Despite really enjoying this book (and Lichtarowicz's poetic prose), I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with the depiction of the Romani woman who gives Lena her fate. For that reason, I'm removing one star from my rating.
"The Snow Hare" is a harrowing tale of wartime, love, both romantic and familial, and the resilience of the human soul, a perfect choice, especially for women, who still to this day know the pain of having their hopes squandered by fate and circumstance.
