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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Rape, Grief
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Gripping from the beginning. A powerful fictional narrative from a devastatingly brutal chapter in human history. Rimmer captures the complexities of human life that are heightened by war. Makes you contemplate both contemporary events, such as Ukraine, in relation to what war and occupation means for civilian populations; as well as past events and the costs we stand to pay if we allow history to repeat itself. The holocaust must be taught and examined if we humans are ever going to have a chance of overcoming our worst impulses. Does that offer hope? Probably not since too many of us are ignorant of our history and what it can teach us.
emotional
sad
medium-paced
“…and as soon as you convince someone that a group of people is not human, they will allow you to treat them as badly as you wish.” This line from the author, Kelly Rimmer, stopped me dead in my tracks and I immediately went to write it down. It not only carries through the whole book, but also in our lives.
The author does a phenomenal job at pulling you in from the very first page and I felt invested in these characters very quickly. This book is what I would call a page turner because I struggled to put it down, even for a few minutes. The words on the pages jumped out and I could “see” the details vividly from the descriptions. The author’s time and research to describe the city of Warsaw during this era was not missed.
Dual timelines is a popular trend in historical fiction about WWII, but there were times where I felt the story got too drawn out when jumping between the two main characters POVs. At times they’d overlap the same event when it didn’t feel necessary.
I have not read the authors story, The Things We Can Not Say, but I will be adding it to my TBR list.
The author does a phenomenal job at pulling you in from the very first page and I felt invested in these characters very quickly. This book is what I would call a page turner because I struggled to put it down, even for a few minutes. The words on the pages jumped out and I could “see” the details vividly from the descriptions. The author’s time and research to describe the city of Warsaw during this era was not missed.
Dual timelines is a popular trend in historical fiction about WWII, but there were times where I felt the story got too drawn out when jumping between the two main characters POVs. At times they’d overlap the same event when it didn’t feel necessary.
I have not read the authors story, The Things We Can Not Say, but I will be adding it to my TBR list.
I almost didn’t finish this book; not because it wasn’t well-written or compelling or that it didn’t have interesting characters. It was simply so very dark. I loved the characters and it truly is an excellent work of historical fiction. In the latter part of the book there was one event that almost made me give up; it made me angry and a little tearful. But then, again it’s a Holocaust story. So I picked it back up and finished it. I do feel it was a little slow in places, but the character development made me stick with it. Well done, but certainly not for the faint of heart.
Kelly Rimmer is one of my favorite authors. This latest historical fiction story did not disappoint. Telling the story from the POV of Emilia, a young Polish woman being raised by a family after losing her own family due to terrible circumstances, as well as the POV of Roman, a young man who is half Catholic and half Jewish, who lives in the ghetto with his family. Roman is determined to fight back against the Germans who have made life hell for the Jewish citizens of Poland and avenge the horrors he has seen and lived through. It’s a tale of heroism, great loss and suffering, and love and hope. Well told and I can’t wait for this author’s next book!
Kelly Rimmer’s eagerly anticipated novel, “The Warsaw Orphan,” is inspired by Irena Sendler (Kryzyzanowski), a real-life Polish nurse and heroine, who smuggled thousands of Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Meticulously researched and stuffed with heart-rendering emotion, this is more than a story about survival during Nazi-occupied Poland. It’s a call to arms. Not by taking up guns and ammunition, but to dig deep and find love, generosity, and kindness then openly and lavishly share it with others. We see how 14-year-old Elzbieta Rabinek, despite losing everyone dear to her, knew that courage was in her blood. She had inherited it at birth. She had learned it from the legacy of those she’d lost. Armed with that knowledge, she reached deep within and accessed it. Under disguise as a social worker’s aid, she gained access to the Warsaw Ghetto, saw the horror behind the walls and was impelled to give over 2000 children a chance at a better life. An orphan herself and searching for her place in this world, she helped give defenseless young people a second chance. We may not have the chance to be an inspiring humanitarian and save thousands of lives, but we have option of using the 86,400 seconds we are blessed with every day to share a smile, pay it forward with a coffee, offer a stressed mother a hand, or help an elderly person. Instead of fingering someone who carelessly cut us off, budged in line, or failed to be a decent human being, we could fight it with kindness.
“I need to believe that there is some hidden depth of grace within these men who torture us, because if there isn’t, then all hope is lost. And it’s not just lost for us, Roman, but for humanity, because even once all this is over, this evil could emerge from the souls of men again and again and again.”
Like Elzbieta, let’s fight against this evil in human nature so that hope for humanity isn’t lost. It has and will emerge, but if enough of us are fighting it, we can give hope and love room to blossom. Rimmer’s book reminds us to choose kindness.
I think the two things that I’ll remember most about this book, besides Rimmer’s message between the pages, are firstly, Rimmer’s juxtaposition of events throughout. For example, the Spring flowers and Elzbieta’s elation at riding the Ferris wheel in the square with the gunshot and silence and then bookended with the man working the ride audaciously uttering “Have a lovely day.” How? Secondly, I won’t forget the difference a timely hand up would have meant to the little girl in the alley and to Sarah’s child.
Rimmer’s rich characters and haunting setting take backseat to her ability to immerse the reader into the plot. The use of first person and alternating points of view added to this superb story. Rimmer wrote to my five senses: I smelled the sewer clothing on the steps, I heard the baby in the handbag, I saw the gaunt people, I fingered the soil under the apple tree and I tasted the state, stodgy birthday cake. I strongly urge you to purchase Rimmer’s historical fiction masterpiece come June 1, 2021.
Extreme gratitude to Kelly Rimmer, Graydon House, and NetGalley for the gift of my advance reading copy. I received it for free and was under no obligation to provide a review.
Meticulously researched and stuffed with heart-rendering emotion, this is more than a story about survival during Nazi-occupied Poland. It’s a call to arms. Not by taking up guns and ammunition, but to dig deep and find love, generosity, and kindness then openly and lavishly share it with others. We see how 14-year-old Elzbieta Rabinek, despite losing everyone dear to her, knew that courage was in her blood. She had inherited it at birth. She had learned it from the legacy of those she’d lost. Armed with that knowledge, she reached deep within and accessed it. Under disguise as a social worker’s aid, she gained access to the Warsaw Ghetto, saw the horror behind the walls and was impelled to give over 2000 children a chance at a better life. An orphan herself and searching for her place in this world, she helped give defenseless young people a second chance. We may not have the chance to be an inspiring humanitarian and save thousands of lives, but we have option of using the 86,400 seconds we are blessed with every day to share a smile, pay it forward with a coffee, offer a stressed mother a hand, or help an elderly person. Instead of fingering someone who carelessly cut us off, budged in line, or failed to be a decent human being, we could fight it with kindness.
“I need to believe that there is some hidden depth of grace within these men who torture us, because if there isn’t, then all hope is lost. And it’s not just lost for us, Roman, but for humanity, because even once all this is over, this evil could emerge from the souls of men again and again and again.”
Like Elzbieta, let’s fight against this evil in human nature so that hope for humanity isn’t lost. It has and will emerge, but if enough of us are fighting it, we can give hope and love room to blossom. Rimmer’s book reminds us to choose kindness.
I think the two things that I’ll remember most about this book, besides Rimmer’s message between the pages, are firstly, Rimmer’s juxtaposition of events throughout. For example, the Spring flowers and Elzbieta’s elation at riding the Ferris wheel in the square with the gunshot and silence and then bookended with the man working the ride audaciously uttering “Have a lovely day.” How? Secondly, I won’t forget the difference a timely hand up would have meant to the little girl in the alley and to Sarah’s child.
Rimmer’s rich characters and haunting setting take backseat to her ability to immerse the reader into the plot. The use of first person and alternating points of view added to this superb story. Rimmer wrote to my five senses: I smelled the sewer clothing on the steps, I heard the baby in the handbag, I saw the gaunt people, I fingered the soil under the apple tree and I tasted the state, stodgy birthday cake. I strongly urge you to purchase Rimmer’s historical fiction masterpiece come June 1, 2021.
Extreme gratitude to Kelly Rimmer, Graydon House, and NetGalley for the gift of my advance reading copy. I received it for free and was under no obligation to provide a review.
I love historical fiction and didn't think I wanted to read another WW2 story. But, as hard as this was at times, I'm glad that I read it. Because it was loosely based on real events, when I finished, I looked up the historical details. I'm just in awe of the men and women who worked so hard to stand against the brutality and injustice of the war.
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
One of my favourite books of all time, so sad the only book that has ever made me cry.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, War