"The Hotel Tito is an award-winning autobiographical novel of the Serbo-Croatian War.
Author Ivana Bodrozic was born in the Croatian town of Vukovar, just across the Danube from Serbia. In 1991, Vukovar was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army for 87 days. When the army broke the siege, women and children were allowed out of the city, but the army bused 400 men to a farm on the outskirts where soldiers massacred them. Bodrozic's father was among those taken and murdered. In The Hotel Tito, after fleeing the war zone their town has become, the mother and two children are housed along with other displaced persons at a former communist school. For years, they share a single room just large enough for their three beds, waiting to hear whether the narrator's father survived and when they'll be granted an apartment of their own.
In the meantime, life goes on for the teenage protagonist, first loves bloom and burn quickly, new friendships are acquired and lost, new truths emerge. But she never loses her shy, insightful voice, nor her self-deprecating sense of humor. The Hotel Tito is a sensitive and forthright coming of age novel in a time of atrocity and loss."