WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES by Georgia Hunter

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It was only because of a teacher, who gave an assignment to research ancestral roots that Georgia Hunter first learned about Radom, Poland and its significance to her grandfather. She didn’t know what happened to her ancestors and how they had become the lucky ones, the ones to survive one of the most horrendous times in our history - the Holocaust. Curious to answer these and other questions, Georgia began interviewing her relatives and took a trip to Radom, Poland.

This is amazing story, based on true events of an entire family during WWII, from right before the war began to right after (1939-1947). Typically, stories about the Holocaust are about individuals or brothers or unrelated people — this is the first book I’m aware of that is about an entire family. The Jewish Kurc family lived in Radom, Poland -  the parents (Nechuma and Sol), two daughters (Halina and Mila) and two sons (Genek and Jacob).  There was a third son (Addy) but he lived in France. 

This heartfelt story is a beautiful one that is well-written, flows well and has characters you will get to know and care about. We Were the Lucky Ones tells what happened to each member of the family and their struggle to survive. We are taken into their experiences and feel their emotions including fear, the love for family, courage, etc. The chapters alternate between the parents and each one of their children. The story spans across the world — Italy, Poland, France, Siberia, Brazil, and Morocco — over six long years. 

The book delves into the beginning of the Holocaust, when it seemed like it wouldn’t spread beyond Germany. We are there with these characters as they confront a changing society in which being Jewish is a defect that slowly morphs into a crime. 

All around her, it seems, Jews were disappearing. And suddenly, the consequences of this war were undeniably real—an understanding that sent Halina spiraling as she wrestled with the knowledge she both feared and loathed: she was powerless.

We witness Bellas’s anguish living with loss and her suffering from PTSD and survivor guilt.

She wanted, badly, to feel herself again. To be a better person, a better wife. To accept what had happened. To move on. But losing her sister, and then her parents—it was crippling. Their deaths gnawed at her in her waking hours, and haunted her in her sleep. Every night, she would see her sister being dragged into the woods, she would see her parents boarding the trains that would deliver them to their deaths. Every night she dreamed of ways she could have helped them.

There will always be reminders, she thinks. There will be days that are not so bad, and others that are unbearable. What matters, she tells herself, is that even on the hardest days, when the grief is so heavy she can barely breathe, she must carry on. She must get up, get dressed, and go to work. She will take each day as it comes. She will keep moving.

Yet at this horrific time, certain celebrations continue, like childbirth and marriage.  A rabbi marries Jacob Kurc to Bella in secret. Unfortunately, such happy moments are few and far between.

There are so many experiences that are so well-drawn that the reader cannot help but feel for these characters and become emotionally invested in their stories. For example, there is the situation in which a spouse thought long dead miraculously returns, resulting in shock and bewilderment. While it is a wonderful outcome, we see that it can be difficult to reconcile, much like cognitive dissonance.

“You must be relieved though, yes?” Mila nods. “Of course.” She lifts her chin, turns to face her mother. “It’s just that—I’ve spent the last six years thinking he was—was dead. I’d adjusted to it. Accepted it, even, as terrible as that sounds. “I shouldn’t have given up on him. I should have been more hopeful. What kind of wife gives up on her husband?” 

We see the lengths that Mila has to go to hide her little girl Felicia from the Gestapo.  After the war, Felicia is 7 and since she was 1 all she has known is a world filled with the worst kind of prejudice and racism imagineable. The reader sympathizes with the little girl’s plight and the pain and suffering it has caused her parents.

“I want Felicia to grow up someplace she can feel safe, where she can feel—normal.” Mila frowns, wondering what the concept of “normal” even means to her young daughter. The only life Felicia knows is one of being hunted. Forced into hiding. Sneaked through ghetto gates. Left in the hands of strangers. She is nearly seven, and all but the first year of her life has been spent in war, with the sickening awareness that there are people who wish her dead just by virtue of her birth.

Most of the family members had no idea what happened to the others during the war. Of course, they hoped the others survived but they had no way of knowing.

Nechuma can hardly bear to consider the fates of her children who are missing. There is nothing worse, not even the daily hell of the ghetto, than for a mother to live with such fear and uncertainty about the fates of her children. As the weeks and months and years tick by, the torment inside her builds and burns, a crescendo of misery threatening to crack her open. She’s begun to wonder how much longer she can bear the pain.

There are so many other remarkable experiences in this book about each character’s life, for example, how one son and his wife end up in Siberia, how another son has to hide his circumcision, escaping a heavily guarded ghetto, helping the resistance and forging documents, and so much more. We Were The Lucky Ones is a momentous story that attests to the love of family and the perseverance to survive at any cost. 

NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney

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Normal People is a story about coming of age, search for self and understanding the world and one’s place in it. It’s about two misfits striving to be normal.

He had just wanted to be normal, to conceal the parts of himself that he found shameful and confusing.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people.

It’s a story about two self-absorbed Millennials, Marianne and Connell, who are having a on and off again and on and off again relationship. I found that I didn’t care whether their relationship worked or not. In fact, I didn’t care about either one of them and that is primarily why Normal People did not work for me.  The characters were two-dimensional, not likable but more importantly, not compelling. Then there was the lack of a plot because there really doesn’t seem to be one, which is probably why I wasn’t able to become invested in the story.

I was perplexed by the lack of quotation marks and found it difficult at times to discern what was dialogue and what was not. I thought long and hard about the absence of quotation marks. Was it to symbolize the insignificance of the words that were spoken? I think both Marianne and Connell would agree.

Both of our protagonists are deeply flawed and these deficiencies feed into each other. Perhaps they think that together they might be more than the sum of their parts but that just never happened. Poor communication is at the heart of their relationship and both feel unworthy and are somewhat paralyzed by low self-esteem. Both seem to suffer from feelings of depersonalization and dissociation.

Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.

Lately he’s consumed by a sense that he is in fact two separate people, and soon he will have to choose which person to be on a full-time basis, and leave the other person behind.

Both Marianne and Connell tend to be fatalistic and believe the worst of themselves. Feelings of inferiority haunt them and self-castigation abounds.

In just a few weeks’ time Marianne will live with different people, and life will be different. But she herself will not be different. She’ll be the same person, trapped inside her own body. There’s nowhere she can go that would free her from this. A different place, different people, what does that matter?

Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself accidentally to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises.

Connell in particular feels socially awkward and alienated, unsure of how to think and feel.

Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example.

They are not stupid people, but they’re not so much smarter than him either. They just move through the world in a different way, and he’ll probably never really understand them, and he knows they will never understand him, or even try.

I probably thought if I moved here I would fit in better, he says. You know, I thought I might find more like-minded people or whatever. But honestly, the people here are a lot worse than the people I knew in school.

Marianne on the other hand despises herself and believes this hatred is well deserved.

Well, I don’t feel lovable. I think I have an unlovable sort of… I have a coldness about me, I’m difficult to like.

Maybe I want to be treated badly, she says. I don’t know. Sometimes I think I deserve bad things because I’m a bad person.

I don’t know why I can’t make people love me. I think there was something wrong with me when I was born.

Were Marianne and Connell ever really in love? While they proclaim their love for each other, I did not get the sense that they were in love. What drew them to each other? Could it be that opposites attract?  Sometimes they saw traits in each other that they wished they possessed.

Marianne lived a drastically free life, he could see that. He was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him. 

When the book begins they are in High School where Marianne is an outcast and doesn’t care what others think of her whereas Connell is popular and concerned with fitting in with his friends. But when they go off to Trinity College, their roles are completely reversed — Marianne becomes the popular one and Connell is the outcast. Having each been in the other’s shoes so to speak, one would think there would be natural empathy for one another but i didn’t see where that happened.

Yet In spite of themselves, they each actually become somewhat of a positive catalyst for the other’s life. That is probably the most surprising and appealing aspect of this book — how one person can significantly influence another’s life and shape it for the better. And as far as being normal, perhaps it is more about growing up, maturing and finding one’s place in the world.

What they had together was normal, a good relationship. The life they were living was the right life.

Marianne is neither admired nor reviled anymore. People have forgotten about her. She’s a normal person now.

THE OTHER MRS. by Mary Kubica

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How well we think we know those closest to us. And then, what a shock to the system it is to find out we don’t know them at all.

This is the first book I’ve read by Mary Kubica and it definitely won’t be my last! This was a twisty roller coaster ride that gave new meaning to the term gaslighting (for those unfamiliar with it, from dictionary.com — to cause a person to doubt his or her own sanity through the use of psychological manipulation). I was on the edge of my seat reading The Other Mrs. and couldn’t flip the pages fast enough. 

After Will’s sister dies, his family (wife Sadie and two young boys) move to a remote Maine island to live in her house and care for Imogen, the daughter she left behind. The only problem is that Imogen hates them. For Sadie, Will and the boys, a move to a new place means a fresh start and that is a welcome change, after Will’s affair and one son’s trouble at school. Shortly after their arrival, a neighbor is killed and Sadie becomes a suspect.

Sadie blames herself for Will having an affair. She knows she tends to be cold and feels her profession as a doctor is partly responsible since emotion has no place in medicine.

There’s a small part of me that blamed myself for the affair. That believed I’d been the one to push Will into the arms of another woman, because of who I am. I blamed my career, which requires that I be detached. That detachment, the absence of an emotional involvement, works its way into our marriage at times. Intimacy and vulnerability aren’t my strong suit, nor have they ever been. Will thought he could change me. Turns out he was wrong.

I can be cold, I know. Glacial even. I’ve been told this before. I often think that I’d been the one to push Will into the arms of another woman. If only I had been more affectionate, more sensitive, more vulnerable. More happy.

The story is told from three points of view -  Sadie - is married to Will and, Camille - is in love with Will but is obsessed to the point of stalking him, and Mouse - a 6 year old child who struggles with her “Fake Mom.”

Camille tries to evoke sympathy from the reader for being the “other woman.” She conveys how lonely and difficult it can be.  This is not exactly what one expects to hear from the “other woman,” even if it’s true. One doesn’t often hear this perspective.

It’s not easy being the other woman. The only thing there is for us is disdain, never sympathy. No one feels sorry for us. Instead they judge. We’re written off as selfish, scheming, shrewd, when all we’re guilty of is falling in love. People forget we’re human, that we have feelings too.

I went on, telling her how hard it was being that other woman. How lonely. How I didn’t have the promise of daily contact. No check-in phone calls, no late night confessions as we drifted to sleep. There was no one to talk to about my feelings. Alone, I tried not to ruminate on it.

Kubica masterfully structured this story and it flows well. Don’t be put off if you don’t understand the other two POVs, especially Mouse’s. It will all come together in the end. I thought I had figured out the mystery but turns out I only got part of it right but that little predictability didn’t detract from my enjoyment because there was a lot more action and twists to the story. It’s impossible to see all the twists coming and Kubica does a great job keeping the reader guessing.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing - Park Row and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

MR. NOBODY by Catherine Steadman

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Emma Lewis is a leader in her field of memory loss and is chosen to work on a case that will challenge her to determine the diagnosis — is it retrograde amnesia, fugue or lying. It will require her to return to her home town, which she and her family changed their names and left 14 years ago. But Emma knows it’s a big opportunity for her career because these cases are so rare.

This perfect offer out of the blue, this opportunity, the chance I’ve been waiting for. But I’d have to go there? Why does it have to be there of all the places in the world? I’ve spent fourteen years of my life trying to get away from that place, what happened there, and now … now I find out that the only way forward, the only way out, is back.

...if I’m honest, it scares me. My face out there connected and connected and connected until it all leads back to that one night. The night when my whole world was shattered and it was easier to just throw the whole thing in the trash than try to fix it.

Both main characters have issues with the past — Emma hides her past whereas Mr. Nobody has no past. He was found on a beach and has no memory of who he is or where he came from. It’s up to Emma to determine whether she can help him to remember.  But she is having problems of her own.

His world shrinks to a pinhead and then dilates so wide, suddenly terrifyingly borderless. He has no edges anymore. Who is he? He has no self. He feels the panic roaring inside him, escalating, his heart tripping faster. His mind frantically searches for something—anything—to grab a hold of, his eyes wildly scanning the landscape around him. But there is no escape from it, the void. He is here and there is no before. There are no answers.

I’ve been so focused on putting those pieces—and you—back together again that somewhere along the way I came apart at the seams.

What a fun ride this was! It had all the elements of a great psychological thriller — suspense, mystery, twists and turns, hard to put down, kept you guessing, etc. I was in the minority with my response to Steadman’s previous work (Something in the Water). It just didn’t float my boat! (LOL). I was hesitant to read another book by Steadman but ultimately decided to take the chance and I am so glad I did. 

Mr. Nobody grabbed me right from the start and kept me turning the pages as fast as possible. The premise was fascinating and the execution did it justice. This is a compelling story that you won’t be able to put down. I thought I had figured some of it out but I was happy to learn I was wrong. Mr. Nobody is a unique story that you won’t feel you’ve read before. The premise is fascinating and the execution does it justice.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB by Damien Angelica Walters

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Is it true that people become psychologists or psychiatrists because they have so many of their own personal problems? That seems to be the case with Heather, a child psychologist who is at the center of our story. 

The Dead Girls Club is billed as a supernatural thriller yet I did not find that to be the case. The more apt description, in my opinion, is it is a wannabe supernatural story but never gets there plus it's hardly thrilling. I had to force myself to get through the second half of the book. In fact, because it’s considered a supernatural thriller, I expected The Dead Girls Club to be a fast read that I wouldn’t be able to put down. I was wrong. Finally, while the ending caught me by surprise, it seemed anti-climactic.

The story is alternately told in ”Then” and ”Now” chapters with ”Then” being when our main character Heather is 12 and ”Now” is when she is 40-ish. For me, the ”Then” chapters were more compelling and interesting -- we learn about the Red Lady, an urban legend about a witch who was killed centuries ago. These stories were the most appealing element for me as was the buddy relationship between young Heather and Becca, the Red Lady storyteller.  

The ”Now” chapters were somewhat boring and didn't hold my attention as well. There seemed to be some redundancy and aspects came across as contrived. Her husband and two other childhood friends were never fully developed and didn’t play much of a role — it felt like the husband in particular was an afterthought.  These chapters show that Heather is spiraling out of control, becoming increasingly paranoid. She isn't exactly a likable or sympathetic character and that contributed to my being unengaged with the story.  

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

THE CONFESSION CLUB by Elizabeth Berg

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The Confession Club is a fun and fast read, much like a beach read. It’s a heartwarming and comfortable story about friendship, love, honesty, and second chances. While this is the third book in the Mason Series, it is a completely a stand-alone story and Berg fills in any missing details that you need to know. Just be warned that whether you read the first two books or not, you may find the beginning rather confusing like me even though I read Books 1 (The Story of Arthur Truluv) and 2 (Night of Miracles).

It was not easy for me to become engaged with this book and the characters. The first chapter introduced eight people, none of which were in the first two books, and I wasn’t able to get a feel for any of them. With chapter 2, the focus honed in on two main characters and I began to enjoy the story. What wasn’t clear to me while reading chapter 1 was that all of the eight new people were secondary or actually tertiary in importance.

The book tells of a group of people that began as a supper club and has evolved into a confession club where women share their insecurities and regrets in a nonjudgmental setting. 

Naturally, it was endlessly fascinating, what people confessed to. There was a saying someone shared at an early meeting: The truth is always interesting. So, too, an honest confession. And it wasn’t necessarily the sin that was interesting; it was the willingness to say, There. Have a good look at my imperfections. It made you feel better about your own.

“That’s what life is, at its best. A confession club: people admitting to doubts and fears and failures. That’s what brings us closer to one another, our imperfections.

“But to say out loud our missteps or inadequacies—to confess in an honest way and to be lovingly heard—well, that’s the kind of redemption we need on a regular basis.”

The reader will find, throughout the book, insights from everyday people and truisms about everyday life, which makes The Confession Club very real, relatable and at times inspirational.

All around are broken people, doing the best they can. And getting better.

“The only way to get out of that darkness is to go into it,” Karen says. “That’s how you can come out the other side. You’re going to have to hurt more before you finally feel better.”

For me, the story was not about the confession club but rather about Iris, who we met in Night of Miracles and her relationship with a homeless man named John, a vet with PTSD. While Iris is well developed, I didn’t feel like I got to know John that well but maybe that’s in keeping with his character because he has PTSD and isn’t forthcoming with details about his life.  For both of them, they get a second chance at love with each other.

When she abruptly revealed her feelings for John at Confession Club, and revealed as well a kind of shame at feeling this way about a homeless man, Joanie said, “Did you ever hear that Elaine May quote ‘The only safe thing is to take a chance’?”

While The Confession Club is entertaining, I found the first two books more enjoyable and satisfying. In fact, The Story of Arthur Truluv is a wonderful book that everyone needs to read. What? You haven’t read it? Well, get to it!

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW by Sally Hepworth

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Why does the Mother-in-Law always get the bad rap? Sometimes it’s deserved and sometimes not. I’ll let you be the judge. The distinctive feature of this book, my first by Sally Hepworth, is that it’s told from two POVs — the Mother-in-Law (Diana) and the Daughter-in-Law (Lucy).  The reader gains insight into their complicated relationship by learning how each of their perceptions of the same situation and/or their motivations differ.  In typical fashion, the Mother-in-Law seems like an awful and unfair person who seeks to control her children but when I read Diana’s POV, it gave me a whole different take and my opinion of her changed accordingly.  It’s so easy for misunderstandings to occur and this book drives that point home.

But for some reason, despite our similarities, when I look at her, all I see are our differences.

A Mother-in-Law can’t help but be in a no win situation. It’s difficult to navigate being attentive versus annoying, generous versus spoiling the grandchildren, having strong opinions versus being controlling, etc. Similarly, there is only so much a Daughter-in-Law can do to gain the approval of their Mother-In-Law.

Everyone, no matter how old they are, wants their mother’s approval. And EVERYONE, no matter who they are, wants their mother-in-law’s.

Of all the worries I’d had—that she wasn’t the mother-in-law I’d wanted, that she didn’t live up to my expectations—I hadn’t, narcissistically as it turns out, considered that she wouldn’t like me.

Someone once told me that you have two families in your life—the one you are born into and the one you choose. But that’s not entirely true, is it? Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t, for instance, choose your children. You don’t choose your brothers- or sisters-in-law, you don’t choose your partner’s spinster aunt with the drinking problem or cousin with the revolving door of girlfriends who don’t speak English. More importantly, you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.

The reader will definitely be drawn in by the first sentence:

I am folding laundry at my kitchen table when the police car pulls up.

The Mother-in-Law is a fun and fast read and I will definitely read more of Sally Hepworth’s work.

           

THE CHILD OF AUSCHWITZ by Lily Graham

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Could a baby be born in Auschwitz and survive? I know that babies were routinely killed at Auschwitz but I would never have imagined that one could be both born and survive. The Child of Auschwitz is the story of that miracle and is based on the life of Vera Bein who gave birth to a daughter in December of 1944 while in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I was born into a world that had forbidden my existence.

The simple fact of me, had any of the authorities known, would have been enough to end my life before it had even begun. Still, I came. Small, and half-starved, yet determined to be alive, on one of the coldest nights in one of the darkest places in human history.

Lily Graham seamlessly interweaves the story of Eva Adami while in the camps and several years before being captured. While there are sections that explore the past, Eva also tells stories, including how she met her husband and their courtship, to a small group of other female prisoners to detract them from their hellish existence. We become acquainted with Eva’s family and learn how Eva met Michal, who becomes her husband. Eva voluntarily goes to Auschwitz from the Terezin Jewish ghetto in order to find her beloved Michal. Accompanying her is Sofie, her new friend who’s in search of her cousin who looked after her young son Tomas until  she was captured. She needs to find out from the cousin where she hid her son so she can find him after the war. We witness the exceedingly close and remarkable friendship between Eva and Sofie, both of whom are completely devoted to one another and will do whatever it takes to both protect and save each other. It is a beautiful friendship that seemingly knows no bounds.

Eva shows incredible strength and resilience and we really get to know her and Sofie. It is a moving and emotional story that will hold the reader until the final pages.It was truly miraculous that a baby could born to a mother who is starving and stick thin. It was also a godsend that the baby was unable to cry, due to the tiny size of her lungs, and so could live undetected by the Nazis. 

I barely made a sound, my underdeveloped lungs unable to allow me to cry. It would make my life hard, a price I would pay for all my years, but it is why I survived.

While the atrocities inflicted on fellow human beings are unimaginable and incomprehensible, this is also a story about hope, courage, a determination to survive, friendship and a Mother’s love for her child.  The Child of Auschwitz is beautifully written and the character development is very well done. The ending felt rushed to me but this did not deter from my overall positive reading experience.

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

THE BROTHERS OF AUSCHWITZ by Malka Adler

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The Brothers of Auschwitz, a biographical novel,  is the most moving and disturbing Holocaust book I’ve ever read and there have been quite a few. Yes, any story about the experience of being in a concentration camp is deeply upsetting but this one was extremely raw and emotional for me. The detail is exceptional and it will shock you to your core. The reader will feel the pain, anguish, desperation, helplessness, terror, and the horrors of it all as experienced by these two brothers who were taken at 15 and 16 years old. You can’t help but feel outrage that human beings were treated in such a brutal and barbaric way.

We all knew the method at Zeiss. The method: No food, no water, no place to breathe, no shower, no coat, no medication, just work, work fast, until death comes. It takes about three months to come. In the meantime they bring a fresh, healthy consignment and the old-timers get on a train to the nearest available crematorium. Yes. Three months was enough for the Germans to turn healthy young men into a pile of disgusting rags.

There are aspects of being a concentration camp prisoner that I never even contemplated but are on clear display in this book. Yes, it is very difficult to read at times but I feel it is an important book that is worth reading because it brings the experience to life like no other book. There is a marked tension throughout the story that had me on the edge of my seat, unable to put this book down.

This is a story about family, love, the will to survive and above all else, hope. The bond between these two brothers is remarkable and you cannot help but wonder if either would’ve made it through without the other. It is a miracle that they even found each other and were able to stay together. 

What really makes this story stand out from all the others I’ve read is that roughly one-third of the way through the book the war ends. It’s the aftermath that we witness up close and the post traumatic stress that the brothers experience for the rest of their lives. Acclimating to civilized life after suffering and struggling to merely survive is no easy task. It is impossible for them to escape the images, memories and even the smells. 

Sometimes I have images with sound from life in the camps. The images and sounds come like thieves in the day.

There are so many things these former prisoners had to learn or relearn — not to gulp their food, not to steal food, not to keep food in their pocket or hidden in their bed, to say please and thank you, to wash their hands before a meal, and so much more.  There were many newly acquired fears that stuck with them. Because they were shuttled in cattle cars from one camp to the next, one brother won’t ever get on a train. Also feared are hospitals and one brother refuses to ever set foot in one — as a result, he won’t even go for a much needed cataract surgery. One brother confesses that he can’t and won’t go anywhere near a BBQ. Going to a bakery is a very scary proposition because of the ovens. Then there are the mental images and sound bytes that assault their senses at any time. You may leave the concentration camp but the camp never leaves you. 

I realized that the war had ended in the world but not in people’s hearts. I knew, the war would never ever leave us. Just like putting a boiling iron with a number on the body of a calf. The calf grows older, the number remains unchanged.

In fact, after the war was over, the brothers discovered there was a new “hell.” Safely ensconced in Israel, they faced humiliation and later felt shame.

...you went like sheep to the slaughter and didn’t resist. You didn’t fight like men. There were thousands of you in their trains, why didn’t you revolt. You could have grabbed their guns, at least wiped out a few Germans before the crematorium. Aah. We felt new enemies had risen against us. For the Germans we were garbage, in Eretz-Israel we were sheep.

We should have attacked them. We should have caused havoc, stopped those convoys walking and walking to the crematorium as if they were handing out candies on sticks in there. They’d have fired their rifles, so what, was gas any better? At least we’d have stopped the pace of death, I think about that and go mad. 

Before the hunger we could have risen against them. The hunger weakened our minds. A hungry person can’t think about anything, his mind is stupid. The Germans took care to make us stupid in the camps, so we wouldn’t notice the convoys going to the crematorium, is it any wonder that we were silent? People didn’t even have the strength to commit suicide. The mind needs a lot of strength to think it’s better to die.

There seems to be some issue with the translation as what’s written seems “rough around the edges.” Perhaps it will be improved when published but if it’s not, it is still a book that needs to be read.

Thank you to Harper Collins UK One More Chapter and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

EVERY THING YOU ARE by Kerry Anne King

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everything You Are is both a heartwarming and heartbreaking story that is an enjoyable read.  It is about a cello, a magical cello that tears a family apart and ultimately, brings it back together. It is well-written and includes important themes like addiction and suicide plus forgiveness, love, redemption, family, and hope.

Braden Healey is an accomplished cellist who, after an unfortunate accident, can no longer make music. He is convinced he is cursed. Divorced from his wife and kept from his children, he has succumbed to a life of alcoholism and has given up all hope. But after his ex-wife and son are killed in a tragic car accident, he is left with no choice but to return in order to raise his 17 year old daughter Allie and protect her from the curse.

Even though he is an alcoholic, Braden has other redeeming characteristics that makes him a sympathetic character. He is trying to make amends with his daughter but she rejects his efforts at every turn. While desperate to remain sober, he feels pulled to drink again and again. Braden is a broken person forced into a situation that will cause him to rise to the role of Father despite setbacks along the way or fail miserably and lose his daughter.

<i>Braden does the math, the number of days from Monday to Thursday divided by the distance between him and the drink he just poured, multiplied by the enormity of his failure and loss. All the calculations come out to the same answer: he is a miserable excuse for a human being.</i>

<i>Braden needs a wall to lean on. He needs to be nicely inebriated, lubricated, sloshed, to protect him from his daughter’s venom and the overpowering presence of the cello. He needs it so bad he can taste the wine in his mouth, warming his throat, creating a shield between him and his emotions.</i>

At the urging of a friend Braden joins what appears to be a novel approach to deal with alcoholism, in contrast to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). It is called Adventure Angels and is a different kind of support group. Instead of what is considered to be AA’s themes of guilt, shame and powerlessness, Adventure Angels treat each day like an adventure and try to bring a positive experience to someone else, perhaps through an altruistic act. If the member suffers a setback, they inform the group who then decides on an adventure for them. Some might say this approach reinforces their bad behavior but Adventure Angels consider it a celebration of an individual’s return to sobriety.

The cello plays a predominant role in the story.  This musical instrument is the one thing that Braden and Allie have in common. He paid for music lessons so that she could learn to play the cello, but like her father, she has given it. Braden and Allie hear it playing music at times and also feel a magnetic pull toward it. The magical realism element adds another layer and for me, greatly enhanced the story. But the power of music truly has the power to heal.

<i>In all of the years since he walked away from his music, his home, and his family, the cello has followed him into his dreams, inhabited all of his waking moments. A phrase of music here, a sensation of strings beneath his fingers there, a phantom bow in his hand when he’s drowning his memories in a bar.</i>

   

<i>Maybe he and Allie still have a chance. Maybe they can connect over the music. If he could teach her, it would be almost like playing himself.</i>

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

THE SPEED OF FALLING OBJECTS by Nancy Richardson Fischer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Would you travel through the Amazon as part of a survivalist TV show in order to reconnect with your Dad and learn his truth? Well that’s what Danger Danielle (Danny) Warren does in The Speed of Falling Objects. This YA book is a fun and fast read that’s an adventure with a romance subplot. It’s a coming-of-age story filled with courage, the will to survive, love, family, friendship, bullying, and living with a disability.

The first sentence pulled me right in and the second sentence kept me there.

I don’t remember impact. There’s silence, followed by by individual sounds, like someone conducting a nature symphony - first birds with different songs, then the deep vibration of frogs, the buzz of myriad insects and an undercurrent of slithering that might be my imagination.

I could not put this book down. The suspense and the survivalist angle kept me turning the pages, as did the romantic angle. Fischer uses vivid imagery to paint a picture of the rainforest and all of its “inhabitants.” A lot of research went into this book and it shows.

At its essence, the story is about Danny coming into her own. Danny has lived with a disability since she was 7, when she lost an eye in an accident. Not surprisingly, this disability had a major impact on her life - her father disappeared shortly thereafter, she was subjected to bullying in school and she suffered from numerous psychological issues.

..came up with their own dance. It was called “The Pigeon.” They stood in a circle flapping their arms like wings and poked their heads left and right, imitating me. I’d never realized that was how I looked. I was just trying to see better because having only one working eye makes judging depth and the speed of moving objects, like people dancing with abandon, a bitch.  Until then, though, I’d thought I was doing a pretty good job. Funny how a single moment changed my self-perception forever.

Danny admits to being scared of “everything” now because of her disability, the exact opposite of who she was before. While the trip is a scary proposition because of all these fears, it is more important to Danny to get to know her Father and prove to him that she is worthy of his attention and love.

...this is my chance to prove to my dad that I can be the kid he used to love.

Tomorrow will be the first step to getting back to the Danny before the accident. Someone my dad will be proud to call his daughter.

As a way to have some sort of connection to her Dad a.k.a. Cougar, Danny has watched all the episodes of his TV show, some even multiple times. Granted it was a one-sided relationship but It was her only way to know him.

I’ve seen every one of my dad’s shows, watched when my mom isn’t home. Cougar eats snakes, bugs, raw eggs and maggots to survive. He suffers in extreme heat, cold and torrential rainstorms that make his skin blister, pucker, crack, bleed. In one episode. My dad almost died from a killer bee attack. In another, he was charged by a grizzly bear.

We really get to know Danny well and witness her personal development while she gets to know her Father and has to face some of her fears.  It becomes an even greater challenge because Cougar is a dislikable person. The reader will easily root for Danny every time.  In this way, it is a story of surviving the rainforest as well as surviving her father’s dysfunction.

THE DUTCH HOUSE by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is a master storyteller and she lives up to this reputation with her latest work - The Dutch House. Her writing is superb and the stories she tells invite you in and before you know it, you’ve developed deep relationships with the characters.  This is a story about abandonment, love, family, loyalty, loss, and forgiveness. It is also about growing up and letting go of the past.

There are three main characters - Danny, the narrator and younger brother of Maeve, our second character and the House. The Dutch House was first built by the VanHoebeeks, who decorated it in Dutch style and lived there until they died.  In fact, all of their possessions had remained there after they had left this world. Life-sized portraits of Mr. and Mrs. VanHoebeeks adorned the walls of the drawing room and paintings of other relatives hung on walls throughout the house. It was a grand estate with glass in the front that saw all the way through to the flowers in the back. Patchett skillfully gives the House life with vivid imagery and detailed descriptions that you will almost feel like you are there.

The VanHoebeeks weren’t the story, but in a sense the house was the story, and it was their house.

The Dutch House, as it came to be known in Elkins Park and Jenkintown and Glenside and all the way to Philadelphia, referred not to the house’s architecture but to its inhabitants. The Dutch House was the place where those Dutch people with the unpronounceable name lived.

When they were young, Danny and Maeve’s mother abandoned them and Maeve stepped into that role. Danny expressed concern that no one could do the same for Maeve. The two siblings grew incredibly close and stayed that way throughout their lives. Their relationship was very touching and a very appealing aspect of the story. 

Several years after their Mother left, their Father married Andrea, who was the epitome of the evil stepmother.  Their dislike of her further united them, if that was even possible.

We ate the cookies and dredged up every awful memory of Andrea we had. We traded them between us like baseball cards, exclaiming over every piece of information one of us didn’t already know.

                

We dug a pit and roasted her.

The Dutch House figures prominently in the story. It drove Maeve’s and Danny’s Mother away — it symbolized to her luxurious excess in a world where others went starving. For their Father, it represented success. The house is what ultimately brought Andrea into their family — she married their Father in order to get it.

For Danny and Maeve, the house was a place to grow up as well as to return. It represented their memories and their pasts. A dominant theme in The Dutch House is the siblings’ inability to let go of the past and their emotional baggage of anger as well as regret. The house physically drew them back time and time again, like a magnet. Whenever Danny returned to town, he and Maeve would end up parked across the street from the Dutch House, watching for any activity or news. 

There was no extra time in those days and I didn’t want to spend the little of it I had sitting in front of the goddamn house, but that’s where we wound up...

...like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns.

Looking and watching the house, they would reminisce about the past and wonder if one can ever truly contemplate the past objectively.

But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.

I didn’t even know they were sisters, meaning I was a toad. But that’s me layering the present onto the past.

Ann Patchett weaves together emotional stories, which capture your heart. She is a fabulous writer: here are a few examples of her masterful use of imagery and metaphors/similes.

Whatever romantic notions I might have harbored, whatever excuses or allowances my heart had ever made on her behalf, blew out like a match.

There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.

That was it. Fluffy, who had not stopped talking since I walked in the door, shut down like a mechanical horse in need of another nickel.