Book Review: Looking at Women, Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina -Memoir

Hello, dear Readers,

Below is my book review of Looking at Women, Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina.

Title: Looking at Women, Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: Memoir

Author: Victoria Amelina

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: February, 2025

Language: English

Hardcover: 320 pages

Meet the Author: Victoria Amelina

Buy Me: Amazon

Book Description

"Unsparing and impossible-to-forget... its shape and urgency dictated by war and by its author’s shining life so abruptly shredded into night." ―The Telegraph

"An effortlessly compelling voice, simultaneously intimate and universal." ―Financial Times

Destined to be a classic, a poet’s powerful look at the courage of resistance.

WITH A FOREWORD BY MARGARET ATWOOD

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country’s literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children’s book author.

Everyone in Ukraine knew that Amelina was documenting the war. She photographed the ruins of schools and cultural centers; she recorded the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to atrocities. And she slowly turned back into a storyteller, writing what would become this book.

On the evening of June 27th, 2023, Amelina and three international writers stopped for dinner in the embattled Donetsk region. When a Russian cruise missile hit the restaurant, Amelina suffered grievous head injuries, and lost consciousness. She died on July 1st. She was thirty-seven. She left behind an incredible account of the ravages of war and the cost of resistance. Honest, intimate, and wry, this book will be celebrated as a classic.

My Thoughts

What a treat this book is. Sad, heartbreaking, infuriating, yes but at the same time a gem. As truthful, real, raw, honest as it can get. The account of the devastation Ukraine has suffered, and continues suffering from the war, the full-scale invasion which started almost three years ago. I command Victoria and all the other women she talks about in her book, whom like her, left their homes, children, professions, to help other people during the war, in any way they could, some of them even enlisting in the army, to fight in the front lines. A must read, definitely. Thank you, St. Martins Press, for the free, physical advanced copy.

Thank you, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley, for the free physical advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review. 

Wendy