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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this heartbreaking story about life in the Jewish Ghetto. It was a very engaging story and told a unique perspective than the other World War II books I have read. I learned a lot about the Warsaw Uprising. I loved Rimmer’s author’s note at the end of the book where she tells you about how the story came about and where you can find more resources about the Warsaw Uprising.
3 1/2 stars. For me it wasn’t as powerful as “All the Things We Cannot Say” but still worth the listen.
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Another fantastic book from Kelly Rimmer! Really loved this one. Always love to read stories about history, especially those that haven’t had much publication.
Elzbieta, formerly Emilia, lives in Warsaw with her foster parents and foster uncle in relative comfort. They have mostly enough to eat, and Uncle Piotr seems to be able to acquire anything they might need. Emilia befriends Sara across the hall and begins to help her rescue Jewish children from the ghetto.
Roman lives with his family in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw. His apartment is now home to several families, including his mom and stepfather, younger brother, and infant sister. Roman is lucky enough to have a job at a textile factory, but struggles to find food for his mother, so that she might nurse baby Eleonora. Eventually, Sara and Emilia come to visit the family, and they want to find a foster family for the baby.
Stop here for spoilers ***
Eleonora escapes with Emilia in the bottom of her bag through a checkpoint, and she is brought to a foster family, where she can live as the daughter of this family as their infant recently died. The rest of Roman’s family, however, is eventually rounded up and forced to board the trains to a “transit camp,” though everyone knows it was a concentration camp.
After the trains stop, those left organize to fight the Germans. After the failed Uprising, Roman is able to escape. Emilia and Sara nurse him back to health. When he is well, he immediately connects with people from the Uprising, and all of Warsaw fights the Germans. Emilia and her family were supposed to leave the city, but the fighting started early and they became trapped.
Eventually, when the fighting ceases, Emilia and her family escape to Łódź, where they live in Uncle Piotr’s factory. Emilia is attacked one day returning from the market, and becomes pregnant. She move into a French convent to wait out her pregnancy.
Roman is determined to continue fighting for his country no matter what. He feels he has nothing left to lose. After the Warsaw Uprising, he begins work with Emilia’s foster father, but he contacts members of the failed army, and they work to sabotage the Soviets. He is arrested and tortured within the prison.
After the baby is born, Emilia returns to Warsaw and her foster parents adopt the baby as their own. They rescue Roman from prison, and he again must endure a healing process as both of his legs were broken. Once he is healed, however, he begins work in a lawyers’ office. He realizes that his life, and his life with Emilia, is more important than continuing to fight, and he begins to make amends. Emilia and Roman find baby Eleonora, now five, living in an orphanage, and begin the process of adopting her.
Overall, I truly loved this book. I loved the characters and the story. My heart ached for them. I wish I could have changed history, change how Jewish people were treated, and how the Germans acted. It is so important to remember that these awful things did happen, though, and to learn from them.
Elzbieta, formerly Emilia, lives in Warsaw with her foster parents and foster uncle in relative comfort. They have mostly enough to eat, and Uncle Piotr seems to be able to acquire anything they might need. Emilia befriends Sara across the hall and begins to help her rescue Jewish children from the ghetto.
Roman lives with his family in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw. His apartment is now home to several families, including his mom and stepfather, younger brother, and infant sister. Roman is lucky enough to have a job at a textile factory, but struggles to find food for his mother, so that she might nurse baby Eleonora. Eventually, Sara and Emilia come to visit the family, and they want to find a foster family for the baby.
Stop here for spoilers ***
Eleonora escapes with Emilia in the bottom of her bag through a checkpoint, and she is brought to a foster family, where she can live as the daughter of this family as their infant recently died. The rest of Roman’s family, however, is eventually rounded up and forced to board the trains to a “transit camp,” though everyone knows it was a concentration camp.
After the trains stop, those left organize to fight the Germans. After the failed Uprising, Roman is able to escape. Emilia and Sara nurse him back to health. When he is well, he immediately connects with people from the Uprising, and all of Warsaw fights the Germans. Emilia and her family were supposed to leave the city, but the fighting started early and they became trapped.
Eventually, when the fighting ceases, Emilia and her family escape to Łódź, where they live in Uncle Piotr’s factory. Emilia is attacked one day returning from the market, and becomes pregnant. She move into a French convent to wait out her pregnancy.
Roman is determined to continue fighting for his country no matter what. He feels he has nothing left to lose. After the Warsaw Uprising, he begins work with Emilia’s foster father, but he contacts members of the failed army, and they work to sabotage the Soviets. He is arrested and tortured within the prison.
After the baby is born, Emilia returns to Warsaw and her foster parents adopt the baby as their own. They rescue Roman from prison, and he again must endure a healing process as both of his legs were broken. Once he is healed, however, he begins work in a lawyers’ office. He realizes that his life, and his life with Emilia, is more important than continuing to fight, and he begins to make amends. Emilia and Roman find baby Eleonora, now five, living in an orphanage, and begin the process of adopting her.
Overall, I truly loved this book. I loved the characters and the story. My heart ached for them. I wish I could have changed history, change how Jewish people were treated, and how the Germans acted. It is so important to remember that these awful things did happen, though, and to learn from them.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Find this review and more on my blog at Worlds Unlike Our Own.
Thank you to the publisher, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The year is 1942 and Elzbieta leads a relatively comfortable life in her family’s Warsaw apartment. While she is aware of the rising tension on the streets, she has never thought much about what the conditions are like for the people in the Jewish ghetto just a short distance away. When she accidentally finds out that her neighbour Sara, a nurse, is part of an underground movement that rescues children from inside the ghetto and finds them new homes, she insists on helping, seeing this as a way she can help. For the Gorka family behind the walls, despite the horrific conditions they have to endure, their sole consolation is that their family is still together. With food and resources running out quickly though, they face the impossible decision of giving away their newborn daughter Eleonora or watch her starve to death. With disturbing rumours of mass deportations in the air, time is quickly running out for them to decide. Roman Gorka’s anger mounts by the day, seeking to fight back against the many injustices perpetrated upon them, and this is the final straw that pushes him to join the rebellion that is building. But Elzbieta and her family have secrets of their own and if Roman’s recklessness draws attention to them and Sara’s operation, everyone will be at risk.
WWII novels have become one of my favourite historical fiction eras to read over the past year or two. Despite the ubiquity of novels in this genre, each one somehow manages to add a new perspective and this book was no exception. In fact, the stories narrated through this book were all entirely new to me, from the children being smuggled out to safety to the uprising inside the Warsaw ghetto. The writing is wonderful and the detail with which these events are described shows the level of research that must have gone into this book.
This was a completely heartbreaking story and a darker read than most I’ve come across, but it had its warmer moments too. The characters in this book were so realistic – complicated and flawed as they struggle to find the strength to overcome some truly terrible circumstances. It was easy at times, to forget they were only 16 and 13, as they felt so much older on page – especially Roman, forced by the war to grow up too soon. Elzbieta, though she hates the Germans, is quite naive as to the true situation for the Jews and has her eyes opened on her first trip behind the walls, and draws upon courage she never knew she had to help the resistance. It was good that the POVs alternated between Elzbieta and Roman, as it allowed the reader to follow both characters as they embarked upon different, but equally dangerous endeavours.
This was my first time reading a book by this author, and I was very impressed with it. Kelly Rimmer has excellently portrayed the struggles of the people in occupied Poland on both sides of the wall. This was quite an emotional and admittedly depressing read at times, but it was nice that it had a semi-happy ending which is something of a rarity in this genre! I’m really looking forward to checking out her other books, particularly The Things We Cannot Say. I would highly recommend this book for fans of WWII novels.
Thank you to the publisher, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The year is 1942 and Elzbieta leads a relatively comfortable life in her family’s Warsaw apartment. While she is aware of the rising tension on the streets, she has never thought much about what the conditions are like for the people in the Jewish ghetto just a short distance away. When she accidentally finds out that her neighbour Sara, a nurse, is part of an underground movement that rescues children from inside the ghetto and finds them new homes, she insists on helping, seeing this as a way she can help. For the Gorka family behind the walls, despite the horrific conditions they have to endure, their sole consolation is that their family is still together. With food and resources running out quickly though, they face the impossible decision of giving away their newborn daughter Eleonora or watch her starve to death. With disturbing rumours of mass deportations in the air, time is quickly running out for them to decide. Roman Gorka’s anger mounts by the day, seeking to fight back against the many injustices perpetrated upon them, and this is the final straw that pushes him to join the rebellion that is building. But Elzbieta and her family have secrets of their own and if Roman’s recklessness draws attention to them and Sara’s operation, everyone will be at risk.
WWII novels have become one of my favourite historical fiction eras to read over the past year or two. Despite the ubiquity of novels in this genre, each one somehow manages to add a new perspective and this book was no exception. In fact, the stories narrated through this book were all entirely new to me, from the children being smuggled out to safety to the uprising inside the Warsaw ghetto. The writing is wonderful and the detail with which these events are described shows the level of research that must have gone into this book.
This was a completely heartbreaking story and a darker read than most I’ve come across, but it had its warmer moments too. The characters in this book were so realistic – complicated and flawed as they struggle to find the strength to overcome some truly terrible circumstances. It was easy at times, to forget they were only 16 and 13, as they felt so much older on page – especially Roman, forced by the war to grow up too soon. Elzbieta, though she hates the Germans, is quite naive as to the true situation for the Jews and has her eyes opened on her first trip behind the walls, and draws upon courage she never knew she had to help the resistance. It was good that the POVs alternated between Elzbieta and Roman, as it allowed the reader to follow both characters as they embarked upon different, but equally dangerous endeavours.
This was my first time reading a book by this author, and I was very impressed with it. Kelly Rimmer has excellently portrayed the struggles of the people in occupied Poland on both sides of the wall. This was quite an emotional and admittedly depressing read at times, but it was nice that it had a semi-happy ending which is something of a rarity in this genre! I’m really looking forward to checking out her other books, particularly The Things We Cannot Say. I would highly recommend this book for fans of WWII novels.