Having taught in Siberia for six months I came to know its harsh cold intimately. Petterson's ability to evoke time and place brought me back to the realities of living in a place defined by its starkness and reactions to being occupied. This is wonderful storytelling and I will carry Sistermine with me. I found it also a gem in that Sistermine and her observations about her mother and other women were written by a man, who himself has observed keenly.