Wow. Everyone should read this book. Masterfully written and unforgettable. It’s a difficult book in that it does not flinch from the horrors enacted upon women and children; but, it’s difficulty is what makes it necessary: this unflinching story does the most important work of not allowing the reader to become desensitized to horror, of humanizing but still holding accountable its characters so that we can maybe glimpse into the start of horror and pain with something like mercy. It took me a longer time to read because I had to take breaks, but I am grateful to the author for not allowing me to turn away.