First Impression Friday (1)

First Impression Friday

J.W. over at Storeys of Stories has started a brand new meme that I can’t resist.

Taken from his introduction:

First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther.  Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.  Did you think you’d love and ended up hating it? Or did you think you’d hate it and wound up loving it? Or were you exactly right? I think what will really make this meme a lot of fun, is linking back to it from your review to say, “Look at how wrong I was!” OR “See? I knew it all along!”

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This week I started Daughters of the Night Sky by Aimie Runyan.

 

A novel—inspired by the most celebrated regiment in the Red Army—about a woman’s sacrifice, courage, and love in a time of war.

Russia, 1941. Katya Ivanova is a young pilot in a far-flung military academy in the Ural Mountains. From childhood, she’s dreamed of taking to the skies to escape her bleak mountain life. With the Nazis on the march across Europe, she is called on to use her wings to serve her country in its darkest hour. Not even the entreaties of her new husband—a sensitive artist who fears for her safety—can dissuade her from doing her part as a proud daughter of Russia.

After years of arduous training, Katya is assigned to the 588th Night Bomber Regiment—one of the only Soviet air units composed entirely of women. The Germans quickly learn to fear nocturnal raids by the daring fliers they call “Night Witches.” But the brutal campaign will exact a bitter toll on Katya and her sisters-in-arms. When the smoke of war clears, nothing will ever be the same—and one of Russia’s most decorated military heroines will face the most agonizing choice of all.

I chose this book thinking,  “Well let me read some historical fiction about a side of World War II I don’t know much about.”  I did not expect to be gripped so firmly by chapter one. Katya’s story in enthralling.  From the first chapters describing her determination to receive the same education afforded to boys so that she may one day become a pilot, I was hooked.  Subsequent chapters have proven just an engrossing.

Now, I’m at 35% and unless things change drastically, I expect to end this book with a rating of 4-5 espresso shots.

Feel free to join in on this meme if it interests you. If you do, please link back to J.W., citing him as the creator of the meme.