michaelapr 's review for:

The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel
3.75
emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel is another interesting perspective on WWII and the Holocaust that I’d never heard of (I’m on a roll this year). In this novel we learn about how groups of Polish Jews escaped from the ghettos into the forests where they lived, hiding from the German Nazis that were searching for them. We do this through a fictional group of Jewish people led by Yona, a woman who was kidnapped by an old, prophetic (but extremely mean btw) Jewish woman from her German parents at a young age. Although this is a fictional group, the author’s note at the end reveals a lot of information about the real life group that is mentioned in the book itself. This book is a good read with steady pacing and is definitely well researched since it was very immersive in terms of the forest and the despair that the Nazis brought with them to these small towns during this time. The story is immensely sad, even with there being a feeling of distance between the readers and some of the characters. I liked the hopeful bent that the story took, as most survival and rebellion stories about this period are, although I do wish there’d been more of the mysticism that was hinted at the beginning (similar to another book I read this year). There was also a focus on found family and what it means to be yourself and belong, all of which I’m a sucker for. Overall – a good, sad but hopeful story.
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