Book Review: The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

On the surface, this is a story about a new doctor caught up in World War I. You need a bit of a strong stomach to get through some of the medical descriptions, especially in the first half of the book, which are described well (perhaps a little too well!). The story's told from the perspective of the young doctor Lucius, and his baptism by fire in the medical profession is intense. But the story is really about the attachments he makes as a doctor to those around him, and how those attachments are broken, and his quest to reattach. Lucius is awkward and endearing at times, but there's not enough tragedy or inner pain to his awkwardness, except in a few scenes late in the book. He doesn't seem to notice his own brokenness enough. There's a love story with some beautiful scenes, and its trajectory is different and poignant, sweeping you along in the last third of the book, but it was paced oddly and I feel like I never got to really appreciate the best parts. There's a lot of mystery and things left unsaid, which sometimes feels like a romantic mist but other times becomes just an inert fog. Part of the problem may be that it's not as good as an audiobook, which is how I experienced it. This book is different from your usual wartime novel, and the closest analogue I can think of is All the Light We Cannot See, but this is more literary and less inventive than that (although possibly better written in terms of descriptive language). This is a complex, puzzling, unique book, like a good indie movie that you enjoy the characters, setting, and story, but doesn't quite come together for you.