Ukrainian Lessons

I’ll admit: I approached *Ukrainian Lessons* with skepticism. Another book about Ukraine? Another outsider’s take on war? But within minutes, Higgins’ voice—both on the page and in the narration—pulled me in with its refusal to romanticize or simplify. The audiobook’s strength is its *specificity*. Higgins doesn’t just tell us about Ukrainian resilience; she takes us into a Kyiv opera house where singers rehearse *Aida* as missiles streak overhead, or a Lviv café where a poet scribbles verses between power outages. The narration, while polished, occasionally stumbles over Ukrainian names and phrases, which ironically underscores the book’s central tension: the struggle to convey a culture that refuses to be reduced to soundbites. The pacing is uneven—some chapters linger too long on art theory (Higgins’ academic roots show), while others race through heart-stopping moments, like her visit to a bombed theater in Mariupol. But the production shines in its use of ambient sound: distant sirens, the hum of generators, the clink of tea cups in a makeshift gallery. These details make the audiobook feel *alive*, like you’re standing beside Higgins as she grapples with her own role—is she a witness, a thief of stories, or just another foreigner bearing witness? The lack of a starry narrator (no celebrity voices here) turns out to be a blessing; the focus stays squarely on the Ukrainians themselves, their voices cutting through via Higgins’ sharp, often self-lacerating prose. My one gripe? The ending feels abrupt, as if Higgins couldn’t bear to write a tidy conclusion to a story still unfolding. But maybe that’s the point: this isn’t a book about closure. It’s about the stubborn, glorious act of creating art while the world burns.