Not sure what the issue with Anne Applebaum is to make someone discard a whole post with a number of other citations. There are reasonable criticisms to make about certain interpretaions within the book, but that is not what I am citing for it here. To assuage other readers concerns about the use of Applebaum as a source, it is treated respectfully by many historians:
"Applebaum works as a journalist and writer. But that is no reason to sniff at her contributions as ‘popular history’ or ‘history light’. In the books I have read, Gulag: A History (2003), Iron Curtain (2012) and Red Famine (2017), she has always strived to document her assertions, present logical and well-honed arguments and use archival and other documentary material where possible to forge new paths. One might not always agree with her conclusions, but that is a different question. If only more of our colleagues could write as well as Applebaum, think as clearly and attack important subjects the way she does, we would have a richer historiography as a result." Norman Naimark, Professor of Eastern European Studies at Stanford University.
"There is little criticism that can be brought to the approach of Red Famine... Red Famine is certainly a very useful addition to the existing historiography, offering a gripping account of the disaster befalling the Ukrainian nation in the early 1930s." - Vlad Onaciu is a PhD student in the Faculty of History and Philosophy at Babes-Bolyai University, LSE Review of Books.
"Applebaum’s account will set the norm for Holodomor studies for many years to come. Her research is impeccable, and her sources are comprehensive" - Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey and specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the Soviet Union. He literally wrote the book on the Holodomor: "The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine"
"The most important, as well as the best-written, work of history this year" - Antony Beevor, military historian and author of Stalingrad.
"Her account will surely become the standard treatment of one of history's great political atrocities - a remarkable book" - Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University and author of Bloodlands
"This very well-informed and very readable book will be useful for anyone interested in Ukraine past or present, the history of the USSR, twentieth-century history, famines, or the use of national disasters in state-building." - Michael Ellman, Professor at University of Amsterdam and author of 'Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited' and other texttexts on Soviet history.
"Like her Gulag – which, if you held your nose through the introduction, turned out to be a good read, reasonably argued and thoroughly researched – Red Famine is a superior work of popular history... Her take on Stalin’s intentions comes closer than I would to seeing him as specifically out to kill Ukrainians, but this is a legitimate difference of interpretation. For scholars, the most interesting part of the book will be the two excellent historiographical chapters in which she teases out the political and scholarly impulses tending to minimise the famine in Soviet times." Sheila Fitzpatrick giving a measured review and critique, and who clearly sees it as "legitimate".
There are of course some critical reviews, such as this: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/717544/summary, but as you can see in the lengthy rebuttal here: http://kmhj.ukma.edu.ua/article/download/189122/188548 a lot of that focus is not actually on the Holodomor research itself (a lot of the critique is regarding world war 2, which is not the focus of the book).
There are other critiques and criticisms but they all seem to treat the book as respectful in its treatment of historic facts.
