David Benioff

Documenting his grandparents' experiences during the siege of Leningrad, a young writer learns his grandfather's story about how a military deserter and he tried to secure pardons by gathering hard-to-find ingredients for a powerful colonel's daughter's wedding cake.

A Novel

City of Thieves

Ooooh this one was a treat. I regularly came back to the fact that Benioff, who wrote the book in 2008/9 did so in such a way that had it feeling like a mid century russian novel. I mean that comes from the vulgarity mainly, but  also with the blown out emotions, absurd russian anecdotes, and general sustain for everyone but king and country, including somehow, kind and country. Really there’s just something about a russian novel that’s not actually russian that just makes me laugh. They do love their authors and poets out there. 

Anyways it’s a short and easy book to take down. It manages to keep a light feel to it, predominately due to the one character just floating through life unbothered. Life in a desperate dystopian occupied russia. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, it gets the blood pumping and it keeps you laughing. 

Some guy on my plane out here saw me reading it and commented on the book. He seemed to be from the soviet block somewhere. Said how amazing it was and that he just gave it to his 13 year old daughter to read. It was at that point that i smiled, said nice, and put on my headphones. I didn’t look his direction again. Idk if it was the absurdly vulgar nature of the novel, the extremely descriptive abhorrent nature of many of the characters, the cannibalism, or the 5 young self identifiable  women that had been abducted into a life of forced sex work for the german military men. But i’m guessing that father didn’t check with his wife on if she was okay with sharing that with his young impressionable daughter. Fucking weird if you add me. 

Anyway yeah, good book. Probably a 17yo+ kind of book. Would recommend except to young children or sycophants. Well, maybe sycophants would actually vibe with it. 

connor arnette

Ooooh this one was a treat. I regularly came back to the fact that Benioff, who wrote the book in 2008/9 did so in such a way that had it feeling like a mid century russian novel. I mean that comes from the vulgarity mainly, but  also with the blown out emotions, absurd russian anecdotes, and general sustain for everyone but king and country, including somehow, kind and country. Really there’s just something about a russian novel that’s not actually russian that just makes me laugh. They do love their authors and poets out there. 

Anyways it’s a short and easy book to take down. It manages to keep a light feel to it, predominately due to the one character just floating through life unbothered. Life in a desperate dystopian occupied russia. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, it gets the blood pumping and it keeps you laughing. 

Some guy on my plane out here saw me reading it and commented on the book. He seemed to be from the soviet block somewhere. Said how amazing it was and that he just gave it to his 13 year old daughter to read. It was at that point that i smiled, said nice, and put on my headphones. I didn’t look his direction again. Idk if it was the absurdly vulgar nature of the novel, the extremely descriptive abhorrent nature of many of the characters, the cannibalism, or the 5 young self identifiable  women that had been abducted into a life of forced sex work for the german military men. But i’m guessing that father didn’t check with his wife on if she was okay with sharing that with his young impressionable daughter. Fucking weird if you add me. 

 

Anyway yeah, good book. Probably a 17yo+ kind of book. Would recommend except to young children or sycophants. Well, maybe sycophants would actually vibe with it. 



Abbie Duggan

While this isn’t a book I would normally pick up on my own, I’m very glad it was recommended to me. I loved this story of Lev and Kolya and cannibals and eggs and snow and poets. Benioff is able to take a dark subject and bring humanity to it — I found myself laughing multiple times and truly enjoyed every page.

Ron Perlman

Sarah Sammis

Fun quick read. Makes me more of a conservative American

Finn James

charlotte brand

Siya S

This is yet another war story about friendship in an unlikeliest place, a friendship formed between two unlikeliest people, in times of hardship and despair. Two prisoners are put together in a suicidal mission to find a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake. Surrounded by hunger and frozen terrain of Leningrad, city that has but cut off from all supplies, Lev and Kolya will have to work together to survive and complete the task of their lives.

David Benioff's City of Thieves left me with lots of disappointment. It's true. I'm still deciding whether to love or to hate this book completely. I mean, in a way, I love this book as much as I love Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller, which means I love it very much. It's funny and very well-crafted. The plot is absurdly brilliant, so what's not to love?

***SPOILER ALERT***

1.When the "true story" just turns out to be not-so-"true story". - YES, The book is based on a true story complete bullshit made up by David Benioff. I felt betrayed a little bit finding this out, although at the same time it makes him even more of a brilliant writer. He has admitted in an interview that City of Thieves is neither a memoir of his grandparents, both of whom in fact born in the States, nor his attempt to recreate a memorable piece of work to honor his grandfather and his heroic fellows in the time of war. I don't have a problem with any of those things, really, it's just....I don't know...maybe this turn of event just plays with my feeling too much. It's a bit less dramatic, rather disappointing, to realize that this "based on true event" thing is just some kind of a gimmick. So now I don't know what t make of this story, and don't know what to feel towards this whole thing. And maybe it's because deep down in my heart, I'd love to read The Courtyard Hound very very much.

2.When it's predictable that someone would die. - Not really his fault, that's just me. I hate this feeling so much; to know that my favorite character will die at the end. It's like reading a time bomb, waiting for it to explode at some point, which I don't know when or where. Well, it's just even worse when my instinct just turn out to be true. And that's why it took me months to finish G.R.R.M's GoT, it's just too painful to read.

3.When it's obvious that the book meant to be made into a movie. - So, according to what I've said in #1, to put it simple, this is a fiction made to look like true events in order to promote into a blockbuster flick later on (I heard that Benioff is working on a script right now). I got this feeling around 1/3 of the book, and it grew stronger as I continued reading it. So in the end I just imagined each and every scene in a movie style, with dramatic editing, epic John Williams masterpiece and all. It was fun but kind of weird...maybe too intentional, too mainstream for my taste.

But please, don't get me wrong, I love this book . It's a real page-turner with so many memorable and beautiful lines and phrases. The subplots are also humorous and witty. It has all the elements that a good book should have; it left you with all kinds of feeling and a lot of things to think about. It makes you feel something. It emphasizes on bravery and cowardice, how these things play with us during the hardest of times. To be honest, when I reached the last page, I really didn't want it to end.

From the writer of the award-winning Game of Thrones series for HBO based on the books of George R. R. Martin. 'David Benioff is an exceptional storyteller . . . CITY OF THIEVES is tender, illuminating, and, be warned, often shocking.' Khaled Hosseini Four months into the siege of Leningrad, the city is starving. Seventeen-year-old Lev fears for his life when he is arrested for looting the body of a dead German paratrooper, while his charismatic cellmate, Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested for desertion, seems bizarrely unafraid. Dawn brings, instead of an execution squad, an impossible challenge. Lev and Kolya can find a dozen eggs for an NKVD colonel to use for his daughter's wedding cake, and live. Or fail, and die. In the depths of the coldest winter in history, through a city cut off from all supplies and suffering appalling deprivation, man and boy embark on an absurd hunt. Their search will take them through desolate, lawless Leningrad and the devastated countryside surrounding it, in the captivating journey of two men trying to survive against desperate odds.

Belle

This is probably more of a 3.5 rounded up. The writing was good, but not my favourite. Slightly too much description for my taste, but spread out enough that it didn't bog down the story. The story itself was the best part. I liked the characters and all the strange situations they got into. The endings of Kolya and Vika's stories were predictable, but I guess you can't help that if it's what really happened.

Overall, I'm glad I read this because I'll remember the story for a long time.

taryn a.

4.5 stars! It's genuinely amazing the humour and sorrow Benioff can not only pack into a relatively slight novel, but how quickly and fluidly he's able to transition between them. I had to stop myself from skipping over words to find out what happened next.

Christine W

Absolutely spellbinding, I finished it in a day. It’s brutal at times in it’s stark description of survival during war, but with hope & youthful innocence throughout

Dana Kraft

What does it take to get you out of the house to experience life? Something horrible? An accident? I kept wanting to put this down but I couldn't. I enjoyed it, but most historical fiction makes me want to learn more about that particular time, but I have no desire to learn more about the horrific siege of Leningrad.

Macy HB

delicious read although it would’ve been even better if it was a true story which I certainly thought it was  

Cassidy Webb

This book was hilarious from start to finish. What a wild ride to find some eggs. I really love Lev's morbid sense of humor. And Kolya, oh how I love Kolya. Such a chaotic idiot. 

Melody Izard

It's snowing here. And in Alabama when it snows, the world shuts down. Throw in an Alabama college team playing for a BCS national championship claim and (if you're not a football fan) there is nothing going on. So I'm catching up on my reading - and more importantly - my book reviews. I fear the reviews are not very thorough since they are being written in a state of cabin fever - but they will have to suffice.

Even if I didn't know the author of this book was a screenwriter before I started reading this novel - I believe I would have recognized his talent before I finished the first chapter. The characters deliver movie-style dialog and visual images are what float up when I try to summarize and review my reading. I think that is what I needed on this snowy day. 

This is yet another WWII book - not sure why I keep reading war books. (I'm also reading a book set during WWI). This one certainly has it's share of atrocities - but they don't seem to dominate like atrocities tend to do. Not any less horrible - but far more emphasis on character and plot development. But like I said - this was just what I needed while listening to the cars slip and slide outside my window. 

Now - on to The Savage Detectives which will require much more attention.

From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour and When the Nines Roll Over and co-creator of the HBO series Game of Thrones, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival — and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime. During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible. By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, the New York Times bestseller City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.

Karen Shimek

4.5 stars rounded up for a fantastic historical fiction novel. The siege of Leningrad (now called St Petersburg) was the longest siege in modern history until the siege of Sarajevo. The novel is set in WW II Leningrad and is narrated by a boy who is sent on a “Holy Grail” mission. Excellent story.

a ray

Jeremy Anderberg

“You bring me a dozen eggs by Thursday, I give you your lives back.”

Though I wasn’t aware of this while I was reading the book, Benioff is best known for co-creating and writing the Game of Thrones TV show. The guy obviously has some serious storytelling chops. He’s stuck more with the screen than the pen in the last decade or so, but City of Thieves caught my attention after a number of this newsletter’s readers recommended it to me.

The premise seemed strange at first, but quickly grabbed me: We’re in WWII-era Russia during the 900-day siege of Leningrad. Two Russian boys, on the verge of manhood, are oddly assigned to each other’s company for not quite doing their duty to their Mother Country. Thinking they might be executed, Lev and Kolya are instead sent on a fool’s errand to find a dozen eggs. That’s right: their life and death mission is to bring their superior officer twelve eggs.

It’s a bit humorous, at first. Even to the boys. Is this a joke? And Benioff sprinkles in enough humor, especially in womanizing, constipated Kolya, for us to think that the novel might end up to being more comedy than drama.

But then Benioff will take a surprising, dark turn—on a dime—and shocks the senses back into realizing this is in fact an intense story of survival between unlikely comrades. From underground Soviet markets, to a mysteriously well-stocked house in the country, to an epic game of chess . . . Benioff takes us on a wild ride that’s more than just plot driven, but beautifully written as well. One of my favorite lines:

“There is a place beyond hunger, beyond fatigue, where time no longer seems to move and the body’s misery no longer seems fully your own.” 

City of Thieves was an incredibly fun roller-coaster of a story. I have yet to find someone who hasn’t liked this book; I’m sure you will too if you haven’t read it yet.

Jacklyn O’Brien 

This book seemed like a book written by a man, for men. Lots of talk of bodily functions, women, and vulgarity. That aside, I still enjoyed the book. There was some moments where I was shocked by the horrors of Russian war, but other moments where the story seemed outlandish (all this for some eggs?). Near the end of the book it really reeled me in and made me emotional. Good read.

Elad Schulman

This book really surprised me. I'd wanted to read this book for a few months, and I finally pushed myself to do so a few days ago. And i'm so happy that I did! I love how silly the plot of this book sounded at first, but how intricate the story became. David Benioff didn't hold off on describing the horror of the war, but he also added humor, and characters you grew to love. I just want everybody to read this book.

City of Thieves A Novel

Reviews