The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love & Hate

by Anton Eine

A diary chronicling the hopes, pain and fears of ordinary Ukrainians collected during the current war. Frank, emotional and straight from the heart.

This book is about the first 100 days of fascist Russia’s perfidious and unfounded invasion of Ukraine. But it is not an account of the war and its battlefield engagements. It's about people. About their feelings and emotions, their experiences, fears and pain, their suffering, hope and love.

I started writing this book one sleepless night in Kyiv when I had been kept awake all night by the roar of our aerial defense system and explosions nearby, listening out for approaching rockets and bombs and wondering whether I should take my wife and young son and run for the air-raid shelter. That night, I realized that I had a duty as a writer to act as a voice for those whose stories desperately needed to be told to other people in the world.

I wrote about what I saw and felt. About the stories, my relatives and friends shared with me. It became a chronicle, memoir, diary and confession. I set down our stories so that the whole world might know and understand what we have been through. So that the whole world might share our experiences of this war alongside us – in our trembling buildings, in our freezing cold basements, underground parking lots, bomb shelters and metro stations and in the ruins of our burning cities. So that the world might be given a glimpse into our hearts through the lacerated wounds that have been inflicted on them by this cruel and barbaric war.

Genres: Nonfiction

426 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 21, 2022

About the author

Anton Eine is a modern sci-fi and techno-fantasy author from Kyiv, Ukraine.

An author of a scandalous rock saga 'I, Jesus, Rock Star', the techno-fantasy series "Programagic", the sci-fi short stories collection "Human Kind" and the superhero series "Maze City Stories".

He has also published a non-fiction book "The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love and Hate", his personal diary sharing stories of other people in the middle of the war in Ukraine.

Anton is passionate about food (and some drinks of course!), photography, animals (especially wild cats), and rock music. He likes embedding his hobbies into the fantastic canvas of his writings and sharing that passion with his readers.

Reviews

[Rosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a Nutshell: A horrifying exposé about the life of ordinary Ukrainians after Russia invaded their nation on Feb 24th 2022. Written in the form of a journal and covers the first hundred days of the war. I knew this book would break me; I still read it for the author and for the people of Ukraine; I am now torn apart, much more than what I thought was possible.

Anton Eine might be a new name to many of you. As an indie author who primarily writes in Russian and has his works translated to English, his works are virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. I too hadn’t heard of him until the day I stumbled upon one of his short stories on a website. Since then, I have read a few more of his short fiction and even his full-length sci-fi novel. Fiction is his forte. (He is fabulous at sci-fi.) Whatever I have read of his works, I have enjoyed. Until this book.

The word “enjoy” simply can’t be applied to this memoir. I hated almost every word of it, because my brain refused to believe that this was actually happening. As an avid historical fiction reader, I have read quite a few novels on wars and the barbarities that come along with it. None of those stories prepared me for the reality that the author reveals through this book, none!

"I started writing this book not knowing if I would be able to finish it."
This is how Anton begins this book. He started writing this collection of journal-style essays on a night he couldn't sleep because of the sound of the exploding bombs. Anton makes good use of his skills as a writer, poet and songwriter to present to you a picture of the ground reality in Ukraine for the common citizens. He doesn’t cover the actual battles because, as he says, that’s someone else’s story, someone who is fighting on the frontlines. Anton’s role is to present to us the side we don’t see in the media. He narrates not just his own experiences but also the anecdotes of friends and acquaintances as they struggle to stay alive in times of siege. Moreover, as Anton is father to a three-year-old boy, his narration gets an added layer of poignancy. The way he reveals how he and his wife decided their approach towards talking about the war with their son just broke me. I mean, what kind of a world are we living in that a three year old needs to understand what’s war?!

Let me now add my own version of Anton’s sentiment:
"I started *reading* this book not knowing if I would be able to finish it."
I am someone who prefers keeping my head buried in the sand when it comes to topics about extreme brutalities, especially against animals or children. Reading these in fiction itself is a tough task for me. Reading a nonfiction with this kind of material is akin to gutting myself. I can’t tell you how many times I just cried and closed this book, thinking, “I can’t continue; I don’t want to continue.’ But there was a simple fact that made me return to it every time - I was just reading about the atrocities; the people of Ukraine were living with the atrocities.

Anton covers a variety of topics in this collection. Most of the topics are, but obviously, depressing. PTSD, rapes, murders, food shortages, the role of the media (news and social), … As he jumps from topic to topic, sometimes within the same essay, you can feel his passion, his pain, and even his fear for his family. The essays are somewhat rambling at times, showing his intense distress as he trudged ahead with the narration. I don’t know how he found the strength to pen this book. I’m just stunned at his bravery. Writing this book must have been like digging into a fresh wound with a sharp object, over and over again.

As the book covers just the first hundred days of the war, there is a lot that has happened since then. As of 11th December 2022, the war has lasted for 290 days, and still shows no sign of abatement. When the author began this memoir, he surely wouldn’t have known that the new status quo would continue even until December 2022, and God knows how much longer.

To some extent, the book reminded me of ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’. But Anne was a young teenager in the 1940s who was still hopeful of her chances at times. Anton is a man of the 20th century who has seen enough of life to be realistic about the future. As such, this book is much darker than Anne’s diary. Some of the events are so unbelievably gut-wrenching that I have lost almost all faith in humanity. Thankfully, Anton sprinkles enough of happy moments also to show the positive side of people, whether with volunteering efforts in war zones or providing aid to refugees. These are far and few between, but they do help.

At the end of the book, Anton lists out ways by which you can help the people of Ukraine. One of the ways is by purchasing this book, as all proceeds are to be donated to the Ukrainian cause.

If you wish to read a book about what happens to ordinary lives that aren’t ordinary anymore just because of a crazy dictator’s egocentric whims, this book is the one to choose. Recommended, but with a devastated heart.

I don’t think I need to give you a list of content warnings for a nonfiction book about living in an active war zone.

I wish I could leave this book without a rating because my mind is torn over how to evaluate this book. But I consider it a must-read, despite the traumatic effect it had on me. As such, I’ll just hit the highest rating here to give it a good chance of getting more readers.


I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author at my request and these are my honest thoughts about it.

The book is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
💙 💛  



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[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book slowly and carefully. And if you want to understand what it is like for the everyday people—people like you and I, people with pets they love, with families, children, mums, dads, grandparents who we all love so much and make up our world—who are living through the war in Ukraine right now, then you must read this book. It will give you a deep insight that you can’t get from the news or YouTube. At times it is gruelling, at times it is beautiful. I cried and I felt rage. 

The love that shines out in the darkest times is what humanity is all about. You will see both humanity and inhumanity in these pages. People with nothing, giving everything. At times we all need to push through hard things, just as the author tells us how hard it was to hear the stories and write this valuable piece of history as it happened. It is a personal account, you can feel the pain that the people are enduring. This teaches us we must also not allow war to happen. 

[Olga Miret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I write this review as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team (author, check here if you are interested in getting your book reviewed) and thank her and the author for this opportunity.
This non-fiction book (it might seem incredible and over a year ago we wouldn’t have imagined it could happen, but this is not a fictional dystopian story) is one of the most difficult books to review I’ve come across. The author explains how difficult it was for him to write. He is a writer of science-fiction and techno-fantasy, and he hadn’t planned to write a non-fiction book. In fact, he was supposed to be working on several of his fiction books, including one that he has been working on for many years when events took an unexpected turn. We have all lived through events that seem to have come right out of a horror book in recent times, but for the people of Ukraine, things got even weirder and more dangerous on the 24th of February 2022.
Anton Eine felt he had to write about what was happening, and make sure that people all over the world could get a first-hand account and hear the stories of the people who were living through the nightmare of the war. An author who speaks and writes in Russian, who lives in Kyiv, and who shares his experience of all the gamut of emotions throughout the first 100 days of the war. I’m writing this review when the war has passed the mark of 300 days, and what can one say? If we had a hard time believing it when it started, what can we say almost a year later?
This is a raw book, where the author bares his soul and shares his thoughts and feelings. It is painful, it is ugly at times (if you don’t like name-calling, dehumanising others no matter what they do [although he would counter that the ones doing the dehumanisation are the enemies], and people freely expressing their anger, do not attempt to read this book). The author explains that he decided to write the book as things were happening and capture the impressions and feelings, rather than letting them cool down and being rational about it because that is not what it was about. He didn’t attempt an analysis of the situation, and he does not talk about military campaigns. He feels that kind of books should be written by others. What he wants is to share the stories of many who might never be inclined to share them outside of their own circle of friends and relatives, and also his own.
This is not a straightforward collection of stories. This is the story of the writing of the book as well, of the circumstances of writing it; trying to be in touch with relatives and friends displaced by the war, fighting, volunteering, or missing; worrying for his wife and young son; trying to decide how to explain what is happening to a three-year-old; wondering if they should have left, as they did, or stayed in the city. Of jumping out of bed with the alarms; getting sidetracked by a song, an update, an intercepted message between a Russian soldier and his wife, a show of solidarity, the result of a poll revealing what Russians think about the war, a request for material from his brother, who has joined the Territorial Army, accounts of destruction, cruelty, and massacres...
Eine writes poems, refers to favourite songs, singers and groups, books, and stories. (I must confess I am not a big reader of fantasy or science-fiction and was only familiar with some of the musical references. I don’t think our tastes are too similar, but that is neither here nor there). The book follows a more or less chronological order, although sometimes the author might backtrack to talk about a memory or an episode that he couldn’t include as it happened. Eine mentions the Kübler-Ross model, the one we associate with the five stages of grief, and there are some similarities he acknowledges at times. He cannot believe what is happening at first, especially in XXI Century Europe (although, of course, not that much time has passed since WWII, which he often refers to, and many other wars had taken place since, some in Europe as well), and this quickly becomes anger, an anger that doesn’t go anywhere, although there is some modulation and questioning at times.
I think many of us have learned more about Ukraine since the war started than we ever knew before, but that still is pretty limited in most cases. We get the news here, sometimes live connections with people in situ, but many of the things mentioned in the book haven’t reached us here, at least in Spain where I am. What we hear is more than enough to horrify us, but the stories the author shares make it all more vivid and more difficult to look away from. They highlight the fear, the confusion, the not knowing what to do for the best. Whatever the protagonists of the different stories decided to do (stay, leave the country, join other members of the family, enlist, hide, volunteer to help...), they are always wondering if it was the right thing, if they should have done something else. The ones who were (or have been, so far) lucky, keep thinking about those who weren’t. There are many stories of women running away with their young children, sometimes ill and in dire need of help, having to face terrible ordeals, and luckily, in many cases, eventually finding help and kindness, in their own country or a neighbouring one. Those stories are a drop in the ocean if we think of the number of refugees from the war, and as Eine explains, many people don’t want to talk about it, at least at the moment, and are trying to forget and get on with their lives as much as they possibly can, but they do paint a horrific picture of what it must be like for many people in that situation.
After the stories, and when the book reaches day 100 of the war, the author renders an homage to just a few of the many heroes, men and women, young and old, who have put the lives of others before their own survival, and who have gone above and beyond what most people would expect, as the writer says, not out of patriotism, but out of love for humankind. As the author concludes, “We are all Ukraine”.
The proceeds of the book will go to help Ukrainians in need, and the author also has other suggestions, for those who want to do more, as to how to help.
This is not a book I would recommend freely to everybody, because people know what their limits are when it comes to reading, especially non-fiction, and I cannot even think of trying to list all the warnings (probably anything bad you can think about, you’ll find here). On the other hand, even if you don’t feel up to reading it at the moment, you might know of somebody who wants to read personal accounts or even people who would be happy to buy the book simply as a way to help the people of Ukraine. Do your best. Spread the word.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, Sad, Terrifying.
This is a hard book to review. Did I enjoy reading it - not really. Was it a good book - yes, well written, fascinating, yet sad and terrifying.
Why the contradiction? Well, this is a first-hand account of the War in Ukraine, for yes, it is a war, not a ‘special military operation’ like some idiot would have us believe. It is a war, mostly a war of attrition, on both sides.
For those who have not read anything like this before, it is a must-read book. Anton writes of his life, his wife and son, his extended family, and his friends. He writes of other Ukrainians, of places and events, some of which have hit our screens and papers. And yet, seen from his perspective, they are more chilling, more visceral. And there are some parts which are new to me, and even those I knew of before are made more immediate by his reference to where relatives live, where they go in summer, etc.
The reason I found it so difficult to read, is that as a teenager, I read many books about the Great War and Second World War. I felt quite knowledgeable about those, and other conflicts of my lifetime, some experienced by friends of mine. To be honest, I had no desire to ever read another depressing book like those again. However, Anton offered me a review copy, and I feel at the moment that to refuse to acknowledge these dreadful events is tantamount to burying our heads in the sand. And that simply cannot be done.
It would be a mistake to infer from my review that this book is all depressing, it is not. It is the diary of someone trying to make the best of a difficult situation, to keep his loved ones safe, and quite how he then has the ability to not be completely depressing is beyond me. But he manages to shine a light on the positive, on what matters, and so gives us a fantastic insight into what really should not be happening in this day and age. In Europe. From someone who was an ally.
This is a compelling book that many, many more people should read.

[Jennifer deBie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love & Hate in exchange for an honest review. Read the full review at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/

Anton Eine’s The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love and Hate is a harrowing chronicle of the first 100 days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of a peaceful, neighboring state. Written moment by moment, Thin Blue-Yellow Line follows Eine’s family as they flee their home in the first weeks on the war, taking with them only necessities, and the unshakable hope that they will return.

However, Eine does not focus solely on his own, lived experience, harrowing as it is. Rather, he has taken pains to collect stories from family and friends across Ukraine, each giving their reasons for staying, or going, or coming back to what is left for them to come back to. There are stories of terror, hunger, and hope all to be found within these pages.

This was not a fun read.

Again and again I wept in the reading, as I know Eine wept in the writing.

That said, it is a necessary read. Our children will watch documentaries about these past, many months, and will ask what we knew, and what we did, while a dictator and the populace he has trained like an animal and wields as a weapon attempted to creep across the map. Did we know what was happening?

Did we see the thin, blue and yellow line that divides hate from love?

[TaniaRina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-wrenching
The author wrote this ‘so that the world might be given a glimpse into our hearts through the lacerated wounds that have been inflicted on them by this cruel and barbaric war’.

Even though I’ve been an Israeli citizen for a decade (and had 1 minute to reach the basement shelter when rocket alarms rang the night of my first Shabbat), I have not:
seen fear in my loved ones’ eyes.
been out of contact with my loved ones.
had to flee to a foreign country, hoping for safety.
lived through a full-scale, all-out invasion of my home country.
had to figure out what to pack, where to go, or how I would eat, with whom I would speak (since I’m monolingual).

I cannot fathom what is was like to relive this while writing this book.

The author mentioned that he might plan a visit to the Anne Frank Museum:
‘Consider it a pilgrimage, a duty, a tribute, a show of solidarity, survivor’s guilt, or maybe all of the above.’

From the Author:
‘If this book has also aroused a desire in you to help, I would be most grateful for any help you offer to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. There are many programs and sites that accept charity and support for Ukraine from many different countries. But the easiest and most reliable way to help our country is through the official platform of the Ukrainian government’
[ I unable to add url – the secured site is u24 gov ua ].


May we see an end to evil in our day.

[jill clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Little did I think at 75 years old I would be reading a book about a devastating war taking place in 2022. This book tells the real stories of the war enforced on Ukraine by the terrorists in Russia. It is heartbreaking, well written and should be read by everyone in powerful positions particularly those that can change the bombardment of Ukraine by Russia. Definitely a must read. Congratulations Anton on your powerful book and Slava Ukraine. God Bless you all.The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love and Hate: A war diary from Ukraine

[L.M. Rapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire the will and persistence of the author who kept writing in these stressful and tragic circumstances.
This book allowed me to understand better the difficult conditions in which Ukrainians live today and to feel, in a way, at their side. The first shock, the flight, the suffering, the worry for the civilians trapped in combat zones and for the soldiers on the front…
However, interesting passages are too often immersed in repetitive reflections.
It also bothered me that the author calls Russian soldiers by names. Fascists, Nazis, orcs… Orcs have the excuse of their corrupt nature, while human beings, even in a dictatorship, continue to possess a conscience. The fact that they choose to forget it and give free rein to their vilest instincts is abominable enough. No need to add more.
Out of respect for the tenacity of Anton Eine and the courage of the Ukrainian people, I’ll grant this book five stars. And I hope with all my heart that their difficult ordeal will end soon.

[Olga Khomenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very truthful story written by an extra talented author! Strongly recommended!

[William Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent account of one family’s struggles after the invasion of their country , Ukraine, by Russian forces. There have been other books about families who have struggled during wartime, but what sends this book to the top of those accounts is Mr Eine’s excellent skill as an author.

Mr Eine’s emotions show clearly in this book, his love for Ukraine and his family, and his disgust for the unwarranted invasion of Russian forces.

It’s hard to put down once started, wondering how Mr. Eine and his family will cope with this nightmare.

As an American, it is troubling to note that what happened to his country could happen anywhere. As the war enters its third year it is important to remember that the USA must defend freedom in Ukraine with continued economic and military assistance.