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bea_k 's review for:
We Were the Lucky Ones
by Georgia Hunter
This was a unique reading experience.
It started with a jarring screech—I didn’t immediately like the prose, chapter structure, or character dynamics. The prose felt too emotional for my taste, the structure seemed repetitive, and the character interactions were idyllic. There were also minor errors in the foreign languages used. For example, "Proszę, Pan Kurc." in Polish is grammatically incorrect; it should be "Proszę, PanIE Kurc." The author used the nominative case instead of the vocative (Polish has seven cases). In German, several nouns were incorrectly written in lowercase.
So why did I give it five stars?
Many reasons, but here are my top three:
The digging scene with Mila and Felicia is one I will never, ever forget. It shook me to my core. I couldn't sleep that night. From that powerful midpoint, the book only got better. On a side note, from approximately 30% onward, I hardly found any errors. The repeated use of "Mommy" in Polish during the digging scene was flawless—so much so that, as a speaker of the language, it was almost too powerful and gut-wrenching to bear.
Character development: Both literature and film have many examples of flat character arcs, where protagonists don’t change but instead influence those around them. And these character certainly did. And no, I didn’t like all the characters. But Mila and Genek were my favorites, perhaps because I’m a mother and my relatives were deported to Siberia in 1940, sharing a similar experience to Genek’s.
The level of historical accuracy is astounding. I loved the short historical notes and the crucial context they provided. I also understand why each chapter consisted of a single scene filled with flashbacks and exposition—it had to cover a vast amount of history and character backstory. Structuring that for just one character is challenging, let alone for an entire cast. Would I have liked more variation in scene-building? Sure, but not enough to take away a star.
So, here it is—five stars, even though my reading journey started a little rough.
It started with a jarring screech—I didn’t immediately like the prose, chapter structure, or character dynamics. The prose felt too emotional for my taste, the structure seemed repetitive, and the character interactions were idyllic. There were also minor errors in the foreign languages used. For example, "Proszę, Pan Kurc." in Polish is grammatically incorrect; it should be "Proszę, PanIE Kurc." The author used the nominative case instead of the vocative (Polish has seven cases). In German, several nouns were incorrectly written in lowercase.
So why did I give it five stars?
Many reasons, but here are my top three:
The digging scene with Mila and Felicia is one I will never, ever forget. It shook me to my core. I couldn't sleep that night. From that powerful midpoint, the book only got better. On a side note, from approximately 30% onward, I hardly found any errors. The repeated use of "Mommy" in Polish during the digging scene was flawless—so much so that, as a speaker of the language, it was almost too powerful and gut-wrenching to bear.
Character development: Both literature and film have many examples of flat character arcs, where protagonists don’t change but instead influence those around them. And these character certainly did. And no, I didn’t like all the characters. But Mila and Genek were my favorites, perhaps because I’m a mother and my relatives were deported to Siberia in 1940, sharing a similar experience to Genek’s.
The level of historical accuracy is astounding. I loved the short historical notes and the crucial context they provided. I also understand why each chapter consisted of a single scene filled with flashbacks and exposition—it had to cover a vast amount of history and character backstory. Structuring that for just one character is challenging, let alone for an entire cast. Would I have liked more variation in scene-building? Sure, but not enough to take away a star.
So, here it is—five stars, even though my reading journey started a little rough.