michaelmc 's review for:

The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman

3.0

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Ellen Marie Wiseman based her novel The Plum Tree partially on her own family's experiences during the Second World War. The main character, Christine, is a 17 year old German girl. Her mother works as a servant in the home of a well of Jewish lawyer and his family. Christine sometimes helps there too. The lawyer's wife is only half Jewish and non-practicing. That makes their son Isaac 3/4 Jewish which is enough for the Nazis to send him to Dachau. Christine and Isaac are beginning to fall for each other as the war begins and the Nazi persecution of Jews heats up. Christine's father is drafted into the German Army and is sent to the Eastern Front. The father is in the German 6th Army which is defeated at Stalingrad, will he survive the war? Will Isaac and his family be sent survive Dachau? What happens to Christine and her family? This book started slow and I wasn't sure I could get into it. Then it picked up and I wanted to get to the end.