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stefanie_ann's review against another edition
4.0
Strange, beautiful, and often incredibly sad. What happens when everything is taken from you? How do you rebuild? What stays and what goes--and who decides?
pearloz's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful! Equal parts Everything is Illuminated and the Tiger's Wife. Tragic, sad, but not maudlin or cheesy, well-written, often poetic, evocative, strange.
ldv's review against another edition
4.0
A lyrical, haunting story. A small village of Jews tried to recreate their world and start over. The biblical symbolism and references aboynd, especially in the beginning. Rain and floods and stars are significant motifs. Of course they are unable to keep the "old world" away and it storms back in. Another significant motif is that of parenthood. What happens to Lena happens to her own son. Her husband is pirated away (Joseph?) She is essentially sold away (Hagar?) and starts over too. Yes, it is "another" WWII story, but original and based on truth. Stories are everything, as the book reiterates.
Worth reading.
Worth reading.
stevienlcf's review against another edition
4.0
This fable-like novel depicts a small community of Jews who live a quiet, sheltered existence on a small peninsula in nothern Romania. When a female stranger arrives who describes the horrors of WWII, the villagers decide to "start over." Echoing Genesis, they plan for a grand temple, designate various committees, and solicit the stranger to record their daily prayers.
Ausubel's writing is dreamlike and is often powerful. She recites the history of the Jews -- the "pogroms and survivals, escapes and resettlings" -- in less than a dozen pages. Despite an economy of language, she is able to invoke strong emotions, like when she explains how Lena, the narrator of the story, is given by her parents as a pre-teen to her childless aunt and uncle because "everyone deserves to love something more than themselves." More wrenching is the description of Lena's decision to leave her starving child with a farmer and his wife, making Lena a member of "the clain of women who love their dearests by giving them away."
The book is uneven. The middle section depicting life in the village as the villagers carve a new beginning was tedious. But the novel picks up steam as reality encroaches. Lena's husband is captured and taken away by benign Italian soldiers who "imprison" him on an island where he enjoys daily swims and coffee at an outdoor cafe. Lena makes a harrowing escape through the woods with her two sons.
An unusual depiction of the Holocaust.
Ausubel's writing is dreamlike and is often powerful. She recites the history of the Jews -- the "pogroms and survivals, escapes and resettlings" -- in less than a dozen pages. Despite an economy of language, she is able to invoke strong emotions, like when she explains how Lena, the narrator of the story, is given by her parents as a pre-teen to her childless aunt and uncle because "everyone deserves to love something more than themselves." More wrenching is the description of Lena's decision to leave her starving child with a farmer and his wife, making Lena a member of "the clain of women who love their dearests by giving them away."
The book is uneven. The middle section depicting life in the village as the villagers carve a new beginning was tedious. But the novel picks up steam as reality encroaches. Lena's husband is captured and taken away by benign Italian soldiers who "imprison" him on an island where he enjoys daily swims and coffee at an outdoor cafe. Lena makes a harrowing escape through the woods with her two sons.
An unusual depiction of the Holocaust.
minty's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure what I thought of this. It's pretty bleak, but has small snippets of humor that I really enjoyed. However, the balance was not even on that point. Its subject matter doesn't really demand humor, of course, but I would have enjoyed it more with more of those moments.
rlk7m's review against another edition
4.0
Most of this book was beautiful, but all of it was strange. It reminded me of a Neil Gaiman book, which isn't a bad thing.
laurenqt's review against another edition
3.0
Took me. While to get Into it but I liked how lyrical and magical it was even though it was sad.
akingston5's review against another edition
Ramona Ausubel creates this really beautiful and hollow voice in Lena as her village, hidden by a river in the Carpathians, "starts over" in the wake of World War II. We follow Lena's voice as she goes from a young girl to a woman in America, losing and gaining family along the way. While the prose is really beautiful and almost is whimsical, I felt like I was drowning in it at times and wanted some more stable language to stand on.
Overall, it takes an era of history and its issues and breathes some new life into it. Definitely worth a read!
Overall, it takes an era of history and its issues and breathes some new life into it. Definitely worth a read!
sefanya's review against another edition
5.0
Timeless, beautiful, heartbreaking, triumphant.
This book made me think of all the stories and starting anews I've heard growing up (there was a man and a woman in a garden, there was a big flood)--each one filled with new worlds, fresh starts, malleable memories.
This book is a silent inheritance and homage to stories that turned into religion, mythologies, and cultural tapestry. Stories that become fiction, recounted and repackaged after each retelling. Stories that perish.
Objectively, the book is flawed: pacing too slow, too many things and details to track -- especially in the beginning and middle. But it came together in the end. I almost gave up and DNFed it but glad I didn't.
(To be fair: the confusion and vagueness could also be attributed to how the main character was a child and thus any limitations were based on the extent of a child's comprehension of the events that happened. Was this the author's intent? Who knows.)
TLDR; No One Is Here Except All Of Us is an apt title: everything is interconnected. From the dawn of time to the 20th century, and the times before and since. We're here because we're here because we're here...
This book made me think of all the stories and starting anews I've heard growing up (there was a man and a woman in a garden, there was a big flood)--each one filled with new worlds, fresh starts, malleable memories.
This book is a silent inheritance and homage to stories that turned into religion, mythologies, and cultural tapestry. Stories that become fiction, recounted and repackaged after each retelling. Stories that perish.
Objectively, the book is flawed: pacing too slow, too many things and details to track -- especially in the beginning and middle. But it came together in the end. I almost gave up and DNFed it but glad I didn't.
(To be fair: the confusion and vagueness could also be attributed to how the main character was a child and thus any limitations were based on the extent of a child's comprehension of the events that happened. Was this the author's intent? Who knows.)
TLDR; No One Is Here Except All Of Us is an apt title: everything is interconnected. From the dawn of time to the 20th century, and the times before and since. We're here because we're here because we're here...
chrisralonso's review against another edition
5.0
I don't know if I'll be able to do this book justice. The voice and the descriptions. You're floating over the narrator, a ghost, fog, and you're breathing air you're not supposed to breathe and hearing things you're not supposed to hear. Dreamlike is the closest word I c an think of, and it's not enough.