The New Yorker referred to the account as "a fascinating first-hand testimony to a monumental crime.

"[3] Elie Wiesel, the author best known for the memoir Night, referred to the account as "heartbreaking" because he believes that the memory presented by Balakian "must remain a lesson for more than one generation".

[4] The New Republic praised the account as "a powerful and important book" because "it takes place as one of the key first-hand sources for understanding the Armenian genocide".

[5] Writing for The Washington Post, Chris Bohjalian (a second-generation Armenian American) felt personally connected by understanding what happened to his great-grandparents.

Bohjalian opined that Balakian's account was "rich with evidence of the Turkish government's complicity and its leaders' premeditation."