By Elizabeth Wein
Genre Adult Historical Fiction
Rating ⭐⭐
Synopsis
Follows the friendship between two women as they put their lives in danger during WWII.
First Sentence
I am a coward.
Another book club read and another book that got rave reviews and I just don't get it. I promise I don't just choose to not like books like this because everyone else loves them. I have my reasons.
First of all it was slow. So Slow! It had the longest slowest start to a book ever. And it's not just that it's slow but so confusing. I mean, for like 100 pages I was desperately trying to grasp exactly what was going on. That's not a good thing! It's one thing to have mystery, it's another to be so vague and unreliable that I'm losing interest by page 10.
Don't believe me? At our book club discussion there were several people there who had read this one a while ago so they kept asking questions about things to refresh their memory and those of us there who had just read it kept looking at each other in confusion trying to remember as well. And we'd JUST read it. Geeze! I hope the author is proud of herself; that she pats herself on the back because she wrote the first ever book where you need to reread the four hundred plus pages right after you finish it just to figure out what the hell you just read. You should want to reread books because they're good, not because you have to.
I'm not sure why this book is considered YA. It's about adult women in war, There's torture and death and a lot of things that made me think it should have been marketed as adult not YA.
In the end, I didn't outright hate this one but I did have a lot of issues with it.
Should you read it?
I think most of you have. If you haven't and choose to, plan on reading it twice. *rolls eyes*
I agree that the beginning was slow, and I also thought the ya rating was inaccurate. So this book didn't get five stars from me either. But I loved the tale of strong female friendship across oceans and wars, and was glad that stories like this are being told and gaining strong readership. Have you read The Nightingale? It kind of reminded me of this one, but better.
ReplyDeleteI gave up on this one because it was so slow. I don't remember how many pages I read but I couldn't tell you anything about this book other than most everyone I know loved it but me. I hope your next read turns out a lot better.
ReplyDeleteI wondered why it was considered YA too. I still want to finish it, which is more than I can say about other books we've read for book club. But, I'm not sure what I'll think in the end. Maybe, I'll like it better since I basically know what happens, lol.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read this one, and I don't think I will...but I've always wondered why it's considered a YA novel, too. This one is definitely NOT on my list. :)
ReplyDeleteIt has been a while since I read this book, but I did like it when I read it. I have her new book and started it, but I am not really reading at the moment and it has got put aside.
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet finished this but I'm not exactly rushing back to finish it because I thought it was dreadfully slow in the beginning as well. It took me forever to figure out what was happening but once you get it, everything makes so much more sense. Regardless, it's not exactly a suspenseful book. Lovely review, Jenny!
ReplyDeleteLaura @BlueEyeBooks
Sad! I have heard nothing but good about this book, and when it first came out, it became and instant favorite to a lot of people. I wonder what all the hype was about. I'm scared to read it now. I can't handle slow books right now.
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