My Rating: 5 stars
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt compelled to stay
up late into the night in order to finish a book because I couldn’t bear to put
the book down without finding out how it ends. Things get especially
complicated when it is a book that had me emotionally invested in the story and
in its characters for practically the entire time I was reading
it. Having said that, I will be one of the first to admit that this
book was not an easy one to read for several reasons.
First, the subject matter — having read many books about
World War II and the Holocaust over the years, I knew going into this one to
expect a difficult read. Unlike some of
the other books covering this subject however, the direction this one took was
a bit different than what we typically see, as the central focus (for the
storyline taking place in the 1930s) was on the lead-up to the war, starting in
1933 when Hitler first came to power in Germany, and the resulting environment under
which toxic Nazi propaganda was able to fester unabated, leading to the gradual
shift in attitude towards the Jewish population – the Nuremburg Laws, the
boycott of Jewish businesses, the formation of groups such as the Hitler Youth
movement, the horrible atrocity that was Kristallnacht, etc. – it was against
this backdrop that the story of a friendship between two young girls played
out. In the later timeline (1949 to 1989),
the focus was on the aftermath — the devastating impact of the war, not just
for the survivors, but also for those who participated, whether directly or
indirectly, in the persecution of an entire race having to finally answer for
their actions. In a sense, the war itself played a mostly periphery role
in the story, with its impact on the story’s characters forming the crux of this
narrative about friendship, betrayal, and family destroyed.
Second, the way the story was structured was also
different from the typical dual timeline narratives we often see. While
this one also jumped back and forth in time, it was technically multiple
timelines rather than just two — the narrative opens in 1989, with Ava Fisher,
a young single mother living with her daughter Sophie in New York, receiving a
box containing her mother Ilse von Fischer’s ashes along with a stack of
letters addressed to a woman named Renate Bauer, who is discovered to be Ilse’s
childhood friend back in Germany. From there, we are taken back to 1933
and the start of the narrative taking place in the past — after that, the
timeline jumps to 1977 and later back and forth between each of the years
leading up to and during WWII as well as each of the subsequent decades, going
backward from the 1970s back to the 1940s, only skipping full circle back to
1989 at the very end. Not only that, each chapter was alternately
narrated from the perspectives of each of the main characters: Ava, Renate, and
Ilse. For me, the jumping back and forth between multiple time periods
and characters made the story a bit difficult to follow, which required more time
and focus on my part in order to keep track of everything. In the end though,
the effort was worth it, as this one turned out to be a gem -- a beautifully
told but emotionally heart-wrenching, tragic story that I know I won’t soon
forget.
As always when I read a well-written work of historical
fiction, I learn about not just the history behind the events, but also the
impact of those events on the lives of ordinary people. This personal application
of historical events is something that history books don’t (or rather aren’t
supposed to) cover, but yet, is absolutely crucial in helping us understand this
history, its implications, and more importantly, prevent such atrocities from
happening again (as much as we are able to). Through the poignant, heartbreaking
story of a childhood friendship between two teenage girls who are eventually
torn apart by war, author Jennifer Cody Epstein did a wonderful job bringing
this period of history back into the spotlight. Of equal importance
though, through the lives and actions of the fictional characters in the story,
we are given insight into the complexities of human behavior and the impact of
our actions on others. The character in
the story who most reflected this for me was Ilse, whom I found hard to like
for sure, but at the same time, it felt wrong to hate her – to me, she was one
of the most tragic characters in the story given how much of her life and
actions were shaped by her upbringing and the environment in which she grew up
as well as the price she ended up paying in the end.
This is a book I highly recommend, one that I hope many
will read and learn from. It is also a rendering of history that, given
the times we live in currently, needs to be understood and vigilantly
prevented. As with many of the books I’ve read about the atrocities of
WWII, this one is yet another poignant reminder of the frailty of human life
and the importance of not taking the freedoms we have for granted. This is a story that needs to be read and
experienced and hopefully one we can all learn from.
Received ARC from
Crown Publishing via NetGalley.
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