This book was fantastic in the author’s ability to show the reader a realistic portrait of living through the hell of a Siberian labor camp in the Stalinist Soviet Union. The narrative follows a single day in the life of a labor camp prisoner, Ivan, as he accepts his circumstances with grace and clarity. Ivan articulates the very best aspects of human nature—endurance, willingness to survive, to show compassion and kindness in the most trying circumstances, and to hold unfailingly to hope.