I've only just started using this app to record my reading in 2025 but wanted to add some books from the previous year as a reminder and this was my absolute favourite.  What a debut. Having attended a talk where she shared the stage with  Elif Shafak at Hay, I met the author. As a first novel,  my expectations were not particularly high but I was pleasantly surprised and sorry when I reached the end! I will probably read it again at some point.

This is a deeply moving book that chronicles the life and times of Sarajevans as their city slips slowly out of their grasp and into the depths of war. The narrative masterfully conveys the creeping sense of dread that things will not get better, interlaced with moments of unity and hope. It aims not to sensationalise or to shock, but to give a true sense of what life was like for ordinary people in Sarajevo in that first brutal year of the war - and it illustrates this with breathtaking clarity. Should be compulsory reading for everyone in light of the war in Ukraine.