Review: "You Will Feel It in the Price of Bread" by Katya Hudson

You Will Feel It in the Price of Bread by Katya Hudson
Published February 2023 via Muswell Press
★★★

Hudson was already living outside Ukraine when Putin's forces invaded, but she felt the loss of home keenly. In You Will Feel It in the Price of Bread, she chronicles first her childhood in a happier Ukraine, and then the first days and weeks and months of war as she struggled with fear for her loved ones and the isolation and helplessness of being so far away.

This is a slim volume, easily read in one or two sittings. The earlier part of the book, Hudson's descriptions of her childhood and her deep love for her grandmother, felt stronger to me, though I'm not sure how much of that is that I've read so many descriptions of the war in Ukraine over the past year and a half. (I'm not talking so much about news fatigue—I'm still reading those news articles—but rather that my instinct upon news of war is always to search for stories, memoirs, about what is lost through that war, and those stories are harder to find.) I'd recommend The Rooster House if you're looking for a more detailed memoir of life in (and out of) Ukraine, but it was an interesting read. Hudson's grandmother shines throughout.