This is a fictionalized/slightly souped up retelling of the story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a grad student turned extremely good professional sniper during World War II. About half of the book is her life story before and in the early year or two of the war between when she decided to train in sharpshooting and when she went into the military, and the other half (interspersed) is when she's sent on a publicity tour in America in 1942, where she famously and really became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. I first heard of this on Drunk History and it's great. I love it so.
Anyway, Mila got seduced at barely age 15 by a skeezy doctor who knocked her up, abandoned her, but refused to actually go through with giving her a divorce. On her own, she raised her son wit her parents, went to grad school, wrote a comically long/apparently dull dissertation that she carried around on the battlefield while it got messier and messier (again, see below spoiler cut for remarks on this), and joined the military the afternoon that war broke out. She was an extremely good shooter and the author writes in great detail as to how it's done and what her experiences were. Mila also fell in love with a total sweetheart, Lyonya, but, y'know, warfare....
Later, Mila gets sent on tour along with her estranged husband, who's happy to sponge off her fame (I note I find it funny how she refers to Lyonya as her "husband" and yet it doesn't sound like people in fiction cottoned on to what was going on with someone with the same last name being on tour?), and Kostia, her shooting partner who was also besties with Lyonya. The two of them are already close and get closer, in a very sweet way. And the friendship with Mila and Eleanor is delightful. It starts off a bit rocky, but Eleanor is the kind of woman who will legit drop everything to sew you some clothing alternations and talk to you about how to advance your cause, and it's so sweet! Love it!
"Hello, dear," Eleanor said tranquilly, as if she hemmed pajamas for foreign-born killers every day before dinner."
"This is one of those scenes," the President mused, rubbing his jaw with that sinewy hand, "that just defies description."
I will address some of the fictionalized bits below the spoiler cut. I was disappointed to read they weren't real, but I think the author did an excellent job of adding the plot elements that she did and filling in the holes in Mila's autobiography.
Four stars, loved this, go read it.
Spoiler space
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The whole "marksman tries to kill Roosevelt and set Mila up for the crime, so he stalks her across the country while pretending to be a rich suitor" (note: the suitor existed IRL but not as much) works well. I freaking loved that twist of him being the rich guy, that worked great. Also him trying to get Alexei involved in the plot and Mila ending up taking them both out. I loved it.
I also think the author did a great job of adapting the few details Mila gave in her autobiography about her shitty ex who presumably disappeared, and how we don't know much about her second husband, and in this book, explaining why and how her second husband kept a low profile for familial reasons. It's pretty realistic except for those bits, and she made them work. So, props!
I LOVE that Kostia RETYPED HER DISSERTATION. Hundreds of pages of something he thinks is boring, and he retyped it for her. THAT'S LOVE.
"The marksman had given me diamonds. My husband had utterly ignored anything I told him I wanted, because he always knew better. My sniper partner had retyped my dissertation with two fingers on a borrowed machine."
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