While I appreciate the great lengths Barker has gone to to explore the heavy themes of war, this sequel just didn't grab me. I find the characters to surface level which is weird to say when you're getting an intimate look into their psychological states during the war. As a mass, what they endured was horrific, but the way the overall story is told kind of renders their individual experiences impersonal.

The exploration of the duality which can exist in human nature was interesting, coming to a culmination with the personality split of Prior. Unfortunately, I wasn't that invested in him as a character for this to have as big an impact of me as I felt it could have done.

The story about Scudder becoming mired in a sinkhole with Manning shooting him out of compassion will stay with me for a long time. This to me was the most emotional part of the book. It was this emotional element that felt lacking in the rest of the pages although I can appreciate why. A more emotive telling of this book actually may have missed the point of it all together and provided a kind of sentimentality to the brutality which wouldn't have conveyed the sheer magnitude of the war that was to be endured.