Point of View

The entire book is told from the perspective of Esther. This perspective is important because essentially a coming-of-age story for a girl growing up in Siberia. Had her parents or other relatives contributed to this story, they would have had an entirely different viewpoint. One of the most interesting things of the story is the juxtaposition between the family's exile and consequent hardships with Esther's typical struggles of fitting in with her schoolmates, making friends, and learning her studies like algebra and Russian literature.

There are times when it would be interesting to hear Esther's parents' reaction to different changes in their exile, including the amnesty that leads to their move from the gypsum mine or what happens after Samuel leaves and the three women's situations really seem dire. Since we do not have Samuel's perspective after he leaves Siberia, the reader is held in the...