There is something immediately nauseating – hear me out- about this book. You can be nauseous when you feel ill, when you ride a roller coaster, when you are nervous, or when you eat too many sweets. There is a feeling of hopeful dread that climbs over you (and all of the characters within) before you have finished reading the first page. There is a feeling that you have been here – in a cafe in Prague, under an overpass in Manila, in a field […]
“Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.”
I try to read a little bit of many different genres throughout the course of any given year. However, like most people, I lean more heavily on some genres than others. Fantasy, while one of our most read genres (over 150 pages of reviews!), has been a slowly growing genre for me. It took some in depth discussions with Ale for me to nail down my problems: I have a very difficult time getting my brain around non-Earth settings, and the tropes, particularly the Quest, […]
A love story wedded to a tale of horror
Novels on the Holocaust are always difficult reading on an emotional level, and this one was no exception. Richman’s writing is simple and evocative, intimate and universal, and I got lost in the world of her two tragic lovers while sobbing at the horrors she depicted in the Nazi concentration camps Terezin and Auschwitz. Although told as a love story, Richman gives us a tale of genuine heroes, Jewish artists and musicians who struggled to keep their humanity amidst inhumanity, and who fought to […]