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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
1.5 stars rounded down to -100. The 1.5 stars is for the writing--it was beautiful. But ohhhh my god everything else about this book was positively disgusting. Like, nauseating.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Speechless.
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Before I review this book, I would like to mention that although this book features a gay Jewish man who is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with his family, the author is not Jewish and has no personal connections to the Holocaust. This information is revealed at the end of the book in a discussion section, but I think it’s important to let people know before they decide to read it.
We Are Only Ghosts by Jeffrey L. Richards has a fascinating premise: in 1968, a gay man named Charles works at a European-style café in New York City under a false American identity. He tries as much as possible to forget his past as a Jewish Czechoslovakian Holocaust survivor. One day, he recognizes a customer of the café as Berthold, the Nazi officer who took him out of Auschwitz to live in Berthold’s home as his illicit lover. Charles is forced to confront his past and the complications of his relationship with the man who was simultaneously his captor, lover, father figure, and abuser—not to mention a war criminal who now walks free in the streets of New York City. The book follows a non-linear timeline, jumping between 1968 and Charles’s experiences during World War II.
The portions of the book that take place in 1968 are truly electric: they brilliantly capture the confusion, pain, and surrealness inherent to Charles’s position. The premise is used to thoughtfully explore questions of identity, trauma, abuse, and morality. Despite Charles’ apparent luck in surviving the Holocaust and escaping to America, he exists as a shell of a person. Richards conveys Charles’s numbness and confusion with straightforward yet evocative prose:
Charles should be angry. He should be seething with rage over the likes of Stangl and Berthold, over all the Nazis, free or not. He should be in a rage for all the lives they took, including his own. He should, but all he feels is numb, which he thought would feel like being empty, hollow, drained. But he now understands that numbness has its own weight, its own pressure and gravity, as if he is a bag filled with cement, slowly solidifying into the shape of him.
At times, the tension is so high that it almost feels like a thriller, yet Richards grounds this novel in an earnest and empathetic focus on Charles’s trauma and identity. We Are Only Ghosts is not a revenge thriller—it’s a story about reclaiming selfhood from unspeakable abuse.
Unfortunately, the large portions of this book that recount Charles’s life during World War II are redundant: almost everything that occurs during these chapters is alluded to by Charles’s earlier narrative, and anyone who knows anything about the Holocaust and its horrors should be able to adequately fill in the gaps for themselves. They add little to the overall story. At worst, these chapters are unoriginal, inaccurate, and insensitive. As a non-Jewish person, Richards’s decision to graphically recreate scenes from the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective is questionable to begin with, but it is made worse by the fact that these scenes feel derivative (many feel heavily inspired by Schindler’s List) and sometimes emotionally opportunistic. We Are Only Ghosts could have been a spectacular novella if Richards had chosen to keep the focus on the dynamics between Berthold and Charles in 1968, but instead is dragged down with such flashback chapters.
TL;DR: We Are Only Ghosts by Jeffrey L. Richards capitalizes on its compelling premise to deliver a thoughtful and emotional story about a man forced to face his horrific past to reclaim his agency and identity. However, redundant and problematic flashbacks describing the main character’s past taint an otherwise emotionally resonant story. As such, I do not feel comfortable recommending this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, War
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A heartbreaking read following a gay man that survived the Holocaust only to remain haunted by the ghosts of his past... until he finds the courage to break through his chains and claim the identity that was always meant to be his.
After finishing "We Are Only Ghosts" I am consumed by mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is a beautifully written narrative that was structured in a fascinating way that allowed me to really connect with the characters and break my heart in the process. On the other hand, there are many parts of this book that made me wonder how much of an expert Richards truly is on this subject. But the longer I think about it, the more I feel that Richards constructed a wonderful story of young Charles trying to reclaim who he once was before his life turned to a living hell and it just so happens that this event that Charles lived through was the Holocaust.
When I first started reading this book, I was pretty convinced it wasn't for me. I found it a slow read filled to the brim with sex with interweaving time jumps that often had my head spinning. But as I kept reading this one, I came to realize the significance of all these things. The book is often slow because it is a reflection of Charles' life. Charles is a survivor of a heinous amount of sexual abuse, in which the roots become more clear the further into the book one reads. The story jumps from time period to time period, because it has a more emotional impact than if the story would have been told chronologically. This has got to be one of the best constructed books that I have read when it comes to intersecting timelines and why specific details were presented in a certain order.
One of my favorite chapters early on is number sixteen, which goes into detail about Charles' experience meeting a young actress named Maude. This chapter has some great insights into acting on stage and how everyone in their daily lives is also an actor. As a theater girl, I ate this chapter up and I also found it very applicable to Charles' situation. Despite having to act as a whole different person than the one he was born as his entire life, Charles still finds himself surrounded by professional actors. This image is so powerful to me and really made me think about how little you can truly know about a person due to the different personas we all invoke in day to day life. No joke, if the rest of this would have sucked, I would have kept it on my shelf just for this chapter. Luckily, I ended up finding many takeaways from this one beyond that scene.
The essential themes of this book are escaping the ghosts of one's past and reclaiming ones' identity. The extreme lengths that Charles' goes to in order to loosen the grip of the trauma that he's lived through and reclaim the boy he once was is intense. He does everything he must in order to survive and in the end, manages to use the various skills he has acquired in his time to keep on surviving. I also love how Richards' used ghosts as metaphors for many different things throughout this novel; he truly nailed this use of imagery. The final scenes in the book were quite touching and I could feel myself tearing up as Charles' returned to the place of his trauma and got to face the world as the boy he once was rather than the man that everyone forced him to become.
Overall, I found "We Are Only Ghosts" to be a very intense read filled with heartbreak and turmoil, but also hope and redemption. I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would and was surprised by how emotional this one made me in the long run. Charles' goes through so much throughout the duration of this novel and I can't help but feel for him as he tries to overcome everything he has lived through. I can understand why people could think that this book is controversial (after all, it is written by someone who has little to no connection with the Holocaust), but the book feels well researched and I could tell that many of the topics presented were influenced by the author's own experiences. I think that there is quite a bit to glean from this one, despite the fact that it is a work of historical fiction and indeed is not a memoir. I hope people will be willing to put some of these things aside and give this book a chance. I think many of them will be surprised by what they discover.
After finishing "We Are Only Ghosts" I am consumed by mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is a beautifully written narrative that was structured in a fascinating way that allowed me to really connect with the characters and break my heart in the process. On the other hand, there are many parts of this book that made me wonder how much of an expert Richards truly is on this subject. But the longer I think about it, the more I feel that Richards constructed a wonderful story of young Charles trying to reclaim who he once was before his life turned to a living hell and it just so happens that this event that Charles lived through was the Holocaust.
When I first started reading this book, I was pretty convinced it wasn't for me. I found it a slow read filled to the brim with sex with interweaving time jumps that often had my head spinning. But as I kept reading this one, I came to realize the significance of all these things. The book is often slow because it is a reflection of Charles' life. Charles is a survivor of a heinous amount of sexual abuse, in which the roots become more clear the further into the book one reads. The story jumps from time period to time period, because it has a more emotional impact than if the story would have been told chronologically. This has got to be one of the best constructed books that I have read when it comes to intersecting timelines and why specific details were presented in a certain order.
One of my favorite chapters early on is number sixteen, which goes into detail about Charles' experience meeting a young actress named Maude. This chapter has some great insights into acting on stage and how everyone in their daily lives is also an actor. As a theater girl, I ate this chapter up and I also found it very applicable to Charles' situation. Despite having to act as a whole different person than the one he was born as his entire life, Charles still finds himself surrounded by professional actors. This image is so powerful to me and really made me think about how little you can truly know about a person due to the different personas we all invoke in day to day life. No joke, if the rest of this would have sucked, I would have kept it on my shelf just for this chapter. Luckily, I ended up finding many takeaways from this one beyond that scene.
The essential themes of this book are escaping the ghosts of one's past and reclaiming ones' identity. The extreme lengths that Charles' goes to in order to loosen the grip of the trauma that he's lived through and reclaim the boy he once was is intense. He does everything he must in order to survive and in the end, manages to use the various skills he has acquired in his time to keep on surviving. I also love how Richards' used ghosts as metaphors for many different things throughout this novel; he truly nailed this use of imagery. The final scenes in the book were quite touching and I could feel myself tearing up as Charles' returned to the place of his trauma and got to face the world as the boy he once was rather than the man that everyone forced him to become.
Overall, I found "We Are Only Ghosts" to be a very intense read filled with heartbreak and turmoil, but also hope and redemption. I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would and was surprised by how emotional this one made me in the long run. Charles' goes through so much throughout the duration of this novel and I can't help but feel for him as he tries to overcome everything he has lived through. I can understand why people could think that this book is controversial (after all, it is written by someone who has little to no connection with the Holocaust), but the book feels well researched and I could tell that many of the topics presented were influenced by the author's own experiences. I think that there is quite a bit to glean from this one, despite the fact that it is a work of historical fiction and indeed is not a memoir. I hope people will be willing to put some of these things aside and give this book a chance. I think many of them will be surprised by what they discover.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
This is a really moving historical fiction novel about Charles Ward, a Holocaust survivor, and how the past comes back to haunt him. This is one of those books that I couldn’t read too fast. It gave me so much to think about and reflect on, that I didn’t want to skim over it and not give it the credit it deserved. Charles’ feelings of not knowing his true self were especially poignant. It felt like his life was just happening to him and he had no true agency for so long, that when he was finally free, he didn’t really know who he was anymore. He was put in so many unfair situations that I just wanted to give him a big hug.
I still wonder what happened with Frau Werden and Frau Hueber. But then, I like to have closure with all characters in a standalone novel! I am really glad Charles ended up where he did.
Fun fact: the author and I are both from Oklahoma!
This book releases February 20, 2024. I was fortunate to receive an ARC from a #goodreadsgiveaway
Eating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
I still wonder what happened with Frau Werden and Frau Hueber. But then, I like to have closure with all characters in a standalone novel! I am really glad Charles ended up where he did.
Fun fact: the author and I are both from Oklahoma!
This book releases February 20, 2024. I was fortunate to receive an ARC from a #goodreadsgiveaway
Eating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Antisemitism, War
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Told in two timelines, the (linear) present and the (nonlinear) past, this book follows a nam of many names, whom we know of as Charles at first. He was 17 when he was taken to Auschwitz, with his parents and sisters.
Quickly, he, alone is taken in by a German Nazi, Berthold, outwardly as a slave, but secretly, in his basement at night, a lover. Now, 27 years later, Charles is going about his days as a free man in America when Berthold begins to frequent the cafe in which Charles works.
What proceeds is the story of Charles in all its glory and wretchedness. He can’t seem to decipher his feelings about Berthold. On one hand, he knows this man was evil to him, to Jewish people, but he was also kind and loving to him.
I was leery about reading this at first, not wanting to read a book where a German Nazi was potentially romanticized and made out to be heroic in any way, but I am so SO glad I did because this wasn’t so much the case.
Instead, this is a story of Charles and everything he endured. My heart bled for this man, his journey, and his pain. I was sobbing openly through the depictions of his terrible treatment, the treatment of his family, the conditions in the camp, as well as during the moments of his triumph.
This was a beautiful and incredibly painful story where this man faces his demons and decides whether to seek retribution or not.
A wholly unexpected five stars.
Quickly, he, alone is taken in by a German Nazi, Berthold, outwardly as a slave, but secretly, in his basement at night, a lover. Now, 27 years later, Charles is going about his days as a free man in America when Berthold begins to frequent the cafe in which Charles works.
What proceeds is the story of Charles in all its glory and wretchedness. He can’t seem to decipher his feelings about Berthold. On one hand, he knows this man was evil to him, to Jewish people, but he was also kind and loving to him.
I was leery about reading this at first, not wanting to read a book where a German Nazi was potentially romanticized and made out to be heroic in any way, but I am so SO glad I did because this wasn’t so much the case.
Instead, this is a story of Charles and everything he endured. My heart bled for this man, his journey, and his pain. I was sobbing openly through the depictions of his terrible treatment, the treatment of his family, the conditions in the camp, as well as during the moments of his triumph.
This was a beautiful and incredibly painful story where this man faces his demons and decides whether to seek retribution or not.
A wholly unexpected five stars.