yes. it read like a petty juvenile's love diary more suitable as a romance novel than a historical reference...but it was interspersed with valuable details of how such a co-ed army functioned in the reality of the times.
The regular use of exploding ammunition by the soviets and german's alike, the latter in retaliation with captured ammunition whenever available and the former as a seemingly SOP (grain of salt here given the bias of the author) I found a worthwhile detail that I hadn't read in any of the more meta-level historical account.