THE MOTHER-IN-LAW by Sally Hepworth

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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.

THE WORLD THAT WE KNEW by Alice Hoffman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this thought-provoking, beautifully written work about survival and the Holocaust. The story is captivating with engaging characters that will find their way into your heart. Hoffman, a well-known prolific writer with 30+ books to her credit, effectively utilizes Jewish mysticism and folklore to drive the story. The World That We Knew is about the lengths a mother will go to protect her child and it is also about love, loyalty, loss, survival, and hope.

In order to protect her daughter from the Nazis, Hanni enlists the help of a rabbi’s daughter to create a golem whose sole purpose is to ensure that her young daughter Lea stays alive while she makes her way traveling to safety. The World That We Knew is primarily about three women — Ettie (a Rabbi’s daughter), Lea (a young girl), Marianne (a young housemaid and farm girl).  There is also a fourth “women” — Ava the golem. The lives of these three (or four) women are interconnected and for the backbone of the narrative. These characters are strong, complex and well-developed, even the “soulless” golem. The reader cannot help but emotionally connect with these characters and fear for their safety. 

This book raises many important questions that are left for the reader to ponder. How do you fight evil? Is evil necessary to fight evil? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to have a soul? How do you cope with loss?

...perhaps a demon was needed to fight demons. Perhaps some sins were prayers sent up to the Almighty.

If a soul was formed by meaning and purpose, did not every blade of grass have a soul, for each had a purpose.

This is what grief was, she understood that now. It was never-ending and you carried it with you. You could not stop it or regret it, you could only keep it close to your heart.

While there is sadness and a sense of tragedy that seeps through the words time and time again, there is also hope and love. Good/kindness and evil are juxtaposed throughout the story. Furthermore, love is the thread that connects these characters and their stories - love of life, love of nature, love of animals, a mother’s love, romantic love, and love for others trapped in hell.

The magical realism makes this book special and its presence helps the reader somewhat to get through some of the tragic, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking moments. Furthermore, it sets this book apart from many of the other Holocaust-related historical fiction stories. Note that the presence of mysticism does not diminish the atrocities and horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazis.

The writing itself is lyrical and magical, making me savor every word. The imagery is wonderful and the story flows beautifully.

That was how evil spoke. It made its own corrupt sense; it swore that the good were evil, and that evil had come to save mankind. It brought up ancient fears and scattered them on the street like pearls. To fight what was wicked, magic and faith were needed. This was what one must turn to when there was no other option.

He could not claim to know what a soul was, or who possessed it. But he knew that a dove mourned its young, and a dog yearned for its master, and a man who lost his wife never truly recovered, and love that was given was never thrown away.

This was how life was, tragic and unexplainable. When you were young you were afraid of ghosts, and when you were aged you called them to you.