An exciting, distressing, and ultimately inspiring novel of hardship and family.
Lowenstein-Malz, in this middle-grade novel, tells the story of an Israeli girl discovering the history of her grandmother’s family.
Growing up in modern Israel, it never occurred to 12-year-old Nessya that her relatives had survived the Holocaust; it wasn’t something that was ever discussed. When she hears a rumor from a friend that her own grandmother, Miri Eneman Malz, is a survivor of that era, Nessya first attempts to covertly investigate her grandparent’s apartment, searching for letters or documents that might explain her past. When her unsubtle plan is discovered, Miri avoids Nessya for two whole weeks. But when Miri finally comes to visit, she brings the very documents that Nessya sought. The letters and diary entries detail Miri and her family’s many harrowing escapes as they fled Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust. As Nessya reads over the documents, she learns about the heartbreaking fate of Miri’s Jewish neighbors, who couldn’t foresee the coming doom; about the kindness of a few helpful gentiles; and about her grandmother’s parents and sisters, whose courage and ingenuity delivered them from genocide. The experience gives Nessya new insight into her own history and a glimpse into the pain and fortitude of her indefatigable grandma. Deftly translated from the Hebrew by Frankel and accompanied by lovely portrait illustrations by McGaw, Lowenstein-Malz’s prose is simple and elegant, bearing readers smoothly through the story’s multiple narrative layers. Befitting the book’s young audience, the author doesn’t concentrate on the subject matter’s more gruesome aspects, although she doesn’t whitewash the crimes and degradations, either; instead, she focuses on the luck and triumphs of the Eneman family and their cloak-and-dagger journey out of occupied Europe. She imbues her characters with great humanity, and many sections are heart-rending; one, in which a butcher named Yankel receives a postcard from his brother in the Bergen-Belsen camp, may bring tears to readers’ eyes. Such tragedy aside, the novel is an immersive page-turner, and readers of any age will find themselves flipping forward to see how the story ends.
An exciting, distressing, and ultimately inspiring novel of hardship and family.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990843030
Page Count: 176
Publisher: MB Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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