Although there are references to cursing, none is explicitly spoken—which is a bit odd for a realistic account of a battle featuring frightened, ill-fed, lice-ridden soldiers. On the other hand, the narrators' plainspoken descriptions of what they saw creates a hellish vision of events. In one scene a man holds his entrails in his lap; in another, a man asks to be killed, having no body left below the waist; in another, horses bleed from their nostrils, or stand three-legged, having lost the use of one leg. These pictures are quickly touched on and are not sensational, but they can be sickening; even so, most young adults ought to be able to handle the descriptions, recognizing them as honest parts of the story.

The grimness of the characters' everyday lives could be disturbing because so little is actually shown of the characters' personalities and...