Review: "Sisters of the Sky" by Lana Kortchik

Sisters of the Sky by Lana Kortchik
Published February 2024 via HQ Digital
★★★

War is upon the Soviet Union, and there’s nothing Nina can do about it—until a women’s aviation regiment is formed, and she has the chance to join. War was personal before, but now it is desperately, painfully close, with not only Nina’s family to worry about but also her new regiment.

I’m familiar with Raskova’s regiment because of other books, and I’ve always found it fascinating—there were so many problems with the Soviet Union, but they were also the only major player in WWII (I don’t know about minor players) allowing women to fly in combat (or just more generally to take combat roles).

Plot-wise, the book does sometimes feel like it’s trying to hit all of the known key points from this regiment rather than focusing more closely on a specific experience. Nina is right in the thick of things, learning to respect (and earning the respect of) Raskova and staunchly optimistic about the importance of their flights even as her best friend’s courage crumbles. In some ways I think Katya’s experience is more relatable, and more interesting: it’s not exactly uncommon to see stories of people who are heroic and brave and willing to put it all on the line; Katya, meanwhile, is so clearly miserable to be away from her young daughter, to say nothing of her peacetime life, and while she’s treated as less brave (and certainly less fun to be around), I have to say that I…can’t blame her. Even as a non-parent I have to think that the decision to leave your child in the middle of a devastating war (with not just violence to worry about but also starvation, etc.) to go fly perilously dangerous missions (with no guarantee of return, or time frame for return) would be…difficult. Katya’s not a particularly sympathetic character, and hers is not a story that usually gets told, but hers is the story that might resonate most.

The book is more about friendship than about romance, but there is a romance thread. I ended up wishing that instead of that thread, and all its messy tangles, we’d had more about the other women in Nina’s squadron. We get a bit about them, of course, but other than Katya they largely stay out of focus. Still, I always love seeing more about this bit of history and the stories that don’t always make it out of the footnotes of history books.