The book is an incredible story of the atrocities and hardships that Victor Herman overcame in the gulags of Siberia...and if you can find a copy, it is highly recommended.The movie is not faithful to the book. I would say maybe 50% of the scenes follow the book, but are so "watered down" (it is rated PG, but Herman's experience was much more horrible than could be captured in a PG movie) as to give a wrong impression and even to trivialize what Herman accomplished in just surviving the gulags. The other 50% of the scenes are just additions by the script writer and not in the book...The acting is, however, good.It will be up to somebody like Spielberg to capture the book for the big screen...it would then hopefully be like "Schindler's List", but instead for the millions that Stalin exterminated in the Siberian gulags...