The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine
This book felt to me like a reporter’s "notebook cleaner" in which the author simply dumps old field notes into a new manuscript. As with many other volumes on the war, Miller doesn’t get to the full-scale Russian invasion until more than halfway through his book — but once he does, he is particularly good at recounting the chaotic, precarious early days of the war.
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Miller’s account of this revolution is fascinating and granular, told through his encounters with protesters of all stripes ... His writing about the war is equally nuanced ... Miller certainly has a journalist’s eye for telling details and ear for poignant or revealing comments. He avoids caricature without getting bogged down by caveats. He is not pretending to be a historian or an analyst, but is instead taking the reader on a journey through the tumult of recent years.
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[Miller] brings a seasoned, personal perspective to his book ... Where this book may divide readers is in the large amount of space it allocates to events in Ukraine pre-war ... True, many readers – this reviewer included – will relish learning more about the run-up to the conflict, and the fabric of the society it tore apart ... However, the book does have the feel of a work already in progress before the war with some wartime chapters speedily bolted on ... Occasionally, Miller’s otherwise competent prose also shows deadline fatigue, lapsing into cliché that editors should have fixed.
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