K 125-letii︠u︡ so dni︠a︡ rozhdenii︠a︡ I︠U︡rgisa Baltrushaĭtisa Book

Ratushinskaya is an easy person to like. However, her memoir is disappointing for a lot of reasons. First, I'm not sure her experiences, although they were frightening and a little surreal, warrant such a long and detailed memoir. Her work camp experience as a political prisoner for a few years in Russia (for writing poetry) just isn't that remarkable -- far more people have endured worse and wrote about it more movingly. And the detailed history of her childhood and teen years should have been kept at the private-diary-level only. Some of the blame lies with her translator, who did a poor job with the dialogue -- making it all sound stilted and bizarre. With lots! of! exclamation! points! A better translator might have been extremely helpful to the author.

Having said all that, Ratushinskaya is a charming, warm woman who shared the story of her life growing up in the Communist cities of Odessa and Kiev with a sweet openness. And I did finish it, after all, which says something.