Here’s what I received:

Rutherford Park by Elizabeth Cooke — from Berkley for review

For the Cavendish family, Rutherford Park is much more than a place to call home.  It is a way of life marked by rigid rules and lavish rewards, governed by unspoken desires…

Lady of the house Octavia Cavendish lives like a bird in a gilded cage.  With her family’s fortune, her husband, William, has made significant additions to the estate, but he too feels bound — by the obligations of his title as well as his vows.  Their son, Harry, is expected to follow in his footsteps, but the boy has dreams of his own, like pursuing the new adventure of aerial flight.  Meanwhile, below stairs, a housemaid named Emily holds a secret that could undo the Cavendish name.

As the clouds of war gather on the horizon, an epic tale of longing and betrayal unfolds at Rutherford Park.  (publisher’s summary)

Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey — a surprise from Serena (thank you!!)

Through elegiac verse that honors her mother and tells of her own fraught childhood, Natasha Trethewey confronts the racial legacy of her native Deep South — where one of the first black regiments, the Louisiana Native Guards, was called into service during the Civil War.  Trethewey’s resonant and beguiling collection is a haunting conversation between personal experience and national history.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

…Serena, who won a copy Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust by Leanne Lieberman!!

Congratulations and happy reading!

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Review copy from author
Rating:: ★★★☆☆

“Miss?” a tall handsome police officer leaned into her, “you were great, you really knew what to say to calm her down.”

“Thank you,” Kate said in almost a whisper.

“May I ask who are you? Her friend, sister, lover?”

“None of the above.” Kate’s mouth turned into a slight smile. “I’m the publicist.”

(from The Publicist, page viii)

The Publicist is the first of at least two books about Kate Mitchell, a publicist for a New York City publishing house.  Kate is 34 and unmarried, too busy with her career to seek out romantic relationships.  She is used to dealing with authors who have crazy demands or are just downright crazy, but in the span of several weeks, her life becomes even more chaotic.

Kate’s worked at Morris & Dean Publishing for five years, so she can easily navigate authors who threaten suicide when a huge interview is canceled, a book signing that almost doesn’t happen because not enough books were ordered, and a has-been celebrity whose drinking problems jeopardize a television appearance.  However, when top editor MacDermott Ellis begins to show interest in her, it’s only a matter of time before she stops protesting and succumbs to his charms.  Although he’s married, Kate believes he isn’t the heartless womanizer her best friend thinks he is.  She’s even more confused when the nephew of her dearest author friend arrives for a Christmas visit, and they hit it off.

Readers not only follow Kate’s romantic troubles but also her friendship with an elderly Morris & Dean author, who never delivered on the second book of his two-book deal, and her professional life, in which Kate and Mac work together on an upcoming sequel to one of Morris & Dean’s most successful bestsellers.

Kate is good at what she does; she has the power to make or break an author’s career with a single phone call.  If only she had that same calm control in her personal life.  I liked Kate from the very beginning, and while I didn’t always agree with her choices, I was able to understand how she could overlook the reality of Mac’s situation and let her feelings guide her.  George does a great job developing both Kate and Mac and the chemistry between them.

I wanted to read The Publicist because it’s an insider’s look at publishing.  George is a publicist in the industry and, therefore, writes under a pen name, which makes the story more authentic…and makes you wonder if any of the authors with whom Kate works are based on real people.  She writes about big egos, changes within in the publishing industry, and various work-related stresses, but she does so with humor and an obvious affection for the job.

Even though the book was predictable, I couldn’t help but enjoy it.  My only complaint is that the major plot threads are not resolved by the end.  I knew there would be a second book, but I expected there to be at least some sort of closure in this first installment and then maybe a little something revealed at the end to lead into the sequel.  I was left wanting more, so I definitely plan to read the second book in search of some resolution.  Nevertheless, The Publicist is a book that will appeal to book lovers wanting to know what happens behind the scenes of a book promotion.

Disclosure: I received The Publicist (Book One) from the author for review.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Review copy from W.W. Norton & Company
Rating:★★★★★

What kind of a people, she wondered, does what was done that day and then has no concept of the enormity of their act?

(from The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, page 339)

On the surface, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is a novel about the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 during World War II and a handful of people from different walks of life who are impacted by the war.  But it goes so much deeper than that.  Jennifer Cody Epstein introduces her characters before the war, when life was filled with promise, and lets readers follow them through the darkest days of the war and the period of change afterward.

The novel opens with Cam and Lacy on a ferris wheel at a fair in New York.  Cam is shy and quiet from years of being ridiculed by his father for his stutter, while Lacy is a take-charge kind of woman who sets their relationship in motion.  The hopes and dreams they have are put on hold when war breaks out, and Cam joins the U.S. Army Air Corps.  Epstein has readers sit in the cockpit with Cam as he takes part in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942.

Epstein also introduces readers to Anton, the architect behind many of Tokyo’s modern structures who is later called on by the U.S. military to help destroy them.  His son, Billy, is a sensitive soul who doesn’t fit in and feels at home only behind a camera.  Hana, a passionate, modern woman who eschews the old Japanese ways, feels abandoned by the men she has loved and is resigned to a loveless, arranged marriage.  Yoshi is torn between her love for her troubled mother and her need to escape the depression that permeates their home — and then the incendiary bombs rain down on Tokyo.

These characters were intriguing and their stories fascinating on their own, but when the pieces fell into place and the connections between them were made known, I was blown away.  Epstein does a wonderful job painting a picture of Tokyo before and after and makes you feel like you are standing beside Yoshi when the bombs drop, feeling the heat, tasting the smoke, getting lost in all the chaos and confusion.  She is a master storyteller, enabling readers to really get to know her characters as they flit in and out of their lives.

Epstein focuses on the contrasts that make war so complex: before vs. after, war vs. murder, orders vs. ethics, victors vs. victims, us vs. them.  With characters that straddle both sides, she explores the gray areas of war and identity.  Billy was born and raised in Japan but isn’t Japanese.  Yoshi speaks Japanese, English, and French, thanks to her mother, Hana, who was educated in England and feels more English than Japanese.  They desire love, acceptance, security, and to know their true selves — and the war makes their search for these essentials more desperate and necessary.

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is beautifully written and skillfully constructed.  Epstein moves back and forth between the characters, telling seemingly separate stories, and while readers may not understand where she is taking them, they will be rewarded for their patience in the end.  It’s not an easy book to read given the subject matter, and Epstein doesn’t flinch in her descriptions of the atrocities perpetrated by both sides.  No book about war can be wrapped up neatly or painlessly, but Epstein manages to infuse the ending with hope.  Tokyo is a symbol of these characters, who are brought down by their families and the war, and those who manage to survive will be reborn.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for having me on The Gods of Heavenly Punishment tour.  To follow the tour, click here.

Book 16 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Disclosure: I received The Gods of Heavenly Punishment from W.W. Norton & Company for review.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Here’s what I received:

Mother’s Day gifts:

We Fought Back: Teen Resisters of the Holocaust by Allen Zullo — from The Girl (couldn’t find this one online; she bought it for me at her school’s Scholastic book fair)

Fifteen-year-old Paul just helped blow up a Nazi supply train.  Can he escape the Germans hunting him for revenge?

Fifteen-year-old Sarah has lost many loved ones to Nazi murderers.  Will partisan fighters accept her into their secret group?

Seventeen-year-old Frank and his team are preparing to attack a heavily armed German convoy.  Can they succeed against overwhelming odds — and survive?

These and other Jewish young people took on incredible risks to fight back against the Nazis in World War II.  You will never forget their true stories of courage and survival.  (publisher’s summary)

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson — from my husband

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife.  Ursula dies before she can draw her first breath.  On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual.  For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on toward its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny?  And if she can, will she?

Startlingly imaginative, darkly comic, deeply poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.  (publisher’s summary)

For review:

Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole — from Ballantine

March 1912: Twenty-four-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet on Scotland’s remote island of Skye, receives a fan letter from an American college student, David Graham.  Their correspondence blossoms into friendship, and eventually into love.  And when David volunteers as an ambulance driver during the Great War, Elspeth can only hope he survives.

June 1940:  Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force, but her mother warns her against finding love in wartime.  Then, after a nightly air raid, Elspeth disappears, and Margaret is left with only a decades-old clue as to her mother’s whereabouts — and to what happened to her family long ago.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

“No, why should I?  You can’t blame an entire people for what happened.  I want to be for peace.”

(from Legacy of Rescue, page 95)

Legacy of Rescue is Marta Fuchs’ tribute to her late father, Morton (Miksa) Fuchs, and the man who saved his life during World War II.  Miksa Fuchs, a Jew from Tokaj, Hungary, was sent to a labor camp in 1940.  In early 1945, the Hungarian officer overseeing the Jewish workers was ordered to give them over to the Germans.  The officer, Zoltán Kubinyi, an honest man and a devote Seventh Day Adventist, ignored the order, returned the men to Hungary, and later — when he refused to change out of his uniform into civilian clothes — was taken prisoner by the Russians.  Fuchs and her family never forgot how this man, with a wife and son back home, sacrificed his life to save more than 100 Jewish men from certain death.

The book is very conversational in tone, and thus, very readable.  Fuchs’ father tells his own story here, and you can just feel the passion and strength in his words. Fuchs’ mother and aunts also contribute stories in their own words about their arrival in Auschwitz and their return to Tokaj after the war.  The inclusion of family photos throughout the book helps readers get to know Fuchs and her family and honors those who did not survive.

Fuchs offers her own reflections on fleeing Hungary as a child at the start of the revolution in 1956, talking about the Holocaust with her young son for the first time, meeting Kubinyi’s son, and returning to Tokaj to honor the town’s Jews 50 years after they were rounded up and deported.  Her older brother, Henry, narrates part of the story as well, and reflections from her children and Henry’s children add the voices of a generation far removed from the horrors of the Holocaust but affected by them as well.

Legacy of Rescue is unique among the Holocaust memoirs I’ve read because it is filled with goodness and hope.  There are no graphic depictions of life in the camps, and even though a sense of loss permeates the story, it is really an outpouring of gratitude and a celebration of life.  Fuchs and her family know that the only reason they are alive is because of one man’s selfless act.  This quote, from when Fuchs met Kubinyi’s son, sums up the book beautifully and brought tears to my eyes:

I want to thank you for your father.  I am here in this world because of what he did in saving my father.  But you didn’t have a father to love you and raise you like I had.  (page 122)

Legacy of Rescue may be a short book, but it’s not one you’ll soon forget.  One man stayed true to himself and his beliefs and gave his life to save others.  Another man recognized the chance he was given and emerged from an experience too terrible to comprehend to live a life filled with love.  I think we need stories like this, especially when so much hatred remains in this world.  Fuchs emphasizes that there are good people out there, and we should let their example guide us — and in Legacy of Rescue, these amazing people live on.  I know many people refuse to read books about the Holocaust because they are too painful, so I highly recommend this uplifting story about courage, love, honor, and remembrance.

Disclosure: I received Legacy of Rescue from Smith Publicity for review. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

(from Seduction)

Seduction is the latest novel in M.J. Rose’s series about reincarnation, revisiting the main character from The Book of Lost Fragrances (which I loved).  As with all the other books in the series, it can be read on its own.  Rose weaves together the past and the present in this haunting, atmospheric tale.  She brings back mythologist Jac L’Etoile, who is still coming to terms with the hallucinations she’s had since childhood, refusing to believe they could be glimpses of her past lives, and mourning the end of a love affair when she is contacted by Theo Gaspard about checking out what could be Celtic ruins on the Isle of Jersey.

Jac hasn’t seen Theo since they were teenagers receiving therapy at a clinic in Switzerland, but she remembers the intense bond they shared, how they understood each other in a way that no one ever had.  Malachai Samuels of the Phoenix Foundation, Jac’s therapist and friend who has devoted his entire life to the study of reincarnation and the search for elusive memory tools, warns her against going, but she’s not going to pass up a chance to explore the ruins and find proof of the existence of the Druids.  However, Theo also wants Jac’s help in finding a journal written by novelist Victor Hugo in 1855 that supposedly is hidden in one of the island’s many caves and details his conversations with the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

The novel shifts back and forth between Jac’s adventures in the caves and ruins of Jersey and the scent triggers that bring her back in time and Victor Hugo’s first-person account of the numerous séances in which he participated in the hopes of communicating with his beloved daughter who drowned 10 years before.  Hugo’s story involves a perfumer with ties to the Gaspard family and a spirit that tempts him with the impossible.

Seduction is a captivating, fast-paced novel that is sensual and mysterious, beautiful and tragic, with luscious descriptions of the scents of ancient woods and the sea.  I was surprised by the complexity of the plot, fascinated by the tortured characters, enamored of the scenery, and even chilled by the evil that Hugo must battle.  Readers don’t have to believe in reincarnation to buy into the plot, nor do they have to worry about romance overshadowing a story about haunted souls struggling to find peace in their lives.  Rose is a gifted storyteller who perfectly blends the fact and the fiction to create an unputdownable novel that had me wanting to drop everything to travel to Jersey and see it for myself.

Book 15 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Disclosure: I received Seduction from Atria for review. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Here’s what I received:

His Majesty’s Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal — from Bantam Books via LibraryThing Early Reviewers (Amazon/IndieBound)

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope.  After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive — a covert organization designed to aid the British effort abroad — and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine.  Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters.  But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war — and of her own past.  (publisher’s summary)

I’ll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan — from Harlequin MIRA for review (Amazon/IndieBound)

It’s January, 1943, when Rita Vincenzo receives her first letter from Glory Whitehall.  Glory is an effervescent young mother, impulsive and free as a bird.  Rita is a sensible professor’s wife with a love of gardening and a generous, old soul.  Glory comes from New England society; Rita lives in Iowa, trying to make ends meet.  They have nothing in common except one powerful bond:  the men they love are fighting in a war a world away from home.

Brought together by an unlikely twist of fate, Glory and Rita begin a remarkable correspondence.  The friendship forged by their letters allows them to survive the loneliness and uncertainty of waiting on the home front, and gives them the courage to face the battles raging in their very own backyards.  Connected across the country by the lifeline of the written word, each woman finds her life profoundly altered by the other’s unwavering support.

A collaboration of two authors whose own beautiful story mirrors that on the page, I’ll Be Seeing You is a deeply moving union of style and charm.  Filled with unforgettable characters and grace, it is a timeless celebration of friendship and the strength and solidarity of women.  (publisher’s summary)

The Keeper of Secrets by Julie Thomas — from William Morrow for review (Amazon/IndieBound)

Berlin, 1935.  Wealthy and cultured, the Horowitz family enjoys a privileged position in German society.  Dedicated to the arts and musically gifted, they own a superb collection of exquisite instruments, including a rare 1742 Guarneri del Gesù violin that young Simon, the family’s second son, yearns to master.  But when the Nazis rise to power, they confiscate the prominent Jewish family’s possessions, including the violin they have owned for one hundred and fifty years, and condemn Simon, his brother, and his father to the horrors of Dachau.  Amid unimaginable cruelty and death, the adolescent boy finds unexpected kindness and a chance for survival thanks to his skill with a violin.

Suburban Chicago, 2008.  Fourteen-year-old Daniel Horowitz, Simon’s grandson, is a virtuoso on the violin.  But after winning a prestigious international prize, he rebels, because his mother has forbidden him from doing the one thing that makes him feel like an ordinary kid.  If he cannot play baseball, Daniel insists, he will not play the violin.

Awed by Daniel’s gift and sympathetic to his feelings, world-renowned conductor Rafael Gomez is determined to see the prodigy play again.  When he discovers that the Horowitz family once owned a precious Guarneri del Gesù violin — which they believe has been lost forever — Rafael devises an audacious plan.  He suspects that the violin miraculously survived the war, and he thinks he knows who has it — and how it can be used to inspire Daniel once again.

Skillfully, composed, heartrending yet ultimately uplifting, The Keeper of Secrets reminds us of the preciousness of life and family, and of the power of hope and art to conquer the darkest despair.  (publisher’s summary)

The Look of Love by Bella Andre — unsolicited from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations Inc. (Amazon/IndieBound)

Chloe Peterson vowed never to make the mistake of trusting a man again.  Her reasons are as vivid as the bruises on her cheek.  When her car skids off a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced the gorgeous guy who rescues her must be too good to be true.

As a successful international photographer, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women.  He’s satisfied with his life — until he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley.

With every loving look — and every sinfully sweet caress — the attraction between them sizzles, and Chloe can’t help but wonder if she’s met the man who may be the exception to her rule…  (publisher’s summary)

Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence by David Samuel Levinson — unsolicited from Algonquin (Amazon/IndieBound)

Catherine Strayed is living a quiet, unremarkable life in a secluded college town following the mysterious death of her husband, a promising young writer whose death may have been an accident, a suicide, or perhaps even a murder.  When her former mentor (and onetime lover) — a powerful critic who singlehandedly destroyed her late husband’s chance of success — takes a teaching job at the college, Catherine’s world threatens to collapse.  For with him has come his latest protégé, an exotic young woman named Antonia Lively.  Antonia’s debut novel has become a literary sensation — but it is, in fact, an almost factual retelling of a terrible crime that she relates without any concern for the impact its publication will have on the lives of those involved.

As Antonia insinuates herself into Catherine’s life, mysterious and frightening things start to happen, because unbeknownst to Catherine, the younger woman intends to plunder her own dark, regrettable past — and the unsolved death of her husband — for her next literary triumph.

Provocative and cunning, Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence asserts that fiction is never truly fictional and asks, What does stealing another’s life do to your soul?  Levinson spins a tale of surprises, peeling back one revelation only to find another in this tightly wrought, wickedly cynical look at the worlds of academia, publishing, and celebrity.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

Disclosure: I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

(from Winter’s End, page 207)

Winter’s End is a young adult dystopian novel by Jean-Claude Mourlevat, translated from the French by Anthea Bell, and our book club’s April pick, nominated by The Girl (age 12).  It focuses on four teenagers who reside in prison-like boarding schools in a country ruled by the tyrannical Phalange.  Their only respite is an occasional visit to their consolers, villagers who serve as confidants and are pretty much the only parents they’ve ever known.

When the novel opens, Helen is feeling particularly low and desperate to meet with her consoler.  She takes her best friend, Milena, with her to the village, and on the way, they meet Bartolomeo and Milos from the boys’ school.  This chance meeting changes their lives, igniting a desire to be free and to fight against the government that destroyed their families.  They also get a taste of what it feels like to be in love.  Bart and Milena run away despite the fact that two of their fellow classmates will be punished in their place.  They are immediately drawn to one another, their shared pasts sparking a journey in which Milena’s beautiful singing voice could be their saving grace and something pure to unite the masses.  Meanwhile, Helen and Milos go off in search of their friends, who are being tracked by an evil police chief and a pack of bloodthirsty dog-men.

In Winter’s End, Mourlevat takes readers on an adventure complete with barbaric games, giant horse-men, and a back story of obsession and revenge.  It’s a fast-paced, very readable book, but The Girl and I longed for more.  Who were the Phalange, and why did they feel a need to take over the government?  It was difficult to feel completely invested in their fight for freedom without knowing exactly what they were fighting against.  It was also hard to connect with the main characters because they were pretty flat, with the exception of Milos.  The Girl and I both loved Milos; he was not only strong and fearless but also a romantic and gentle soul.  As for the others, Helen is likeable but seems to act only when she has to and is absent from the major action.  We’re supposed to view Bart as a leader, but he seems to be pretty weak in that regard, simply benefiting from his father’s reputation as a Resistance leader.  And Milena…The Girl couldn’t stand her because she was portrayed as perfect, with everyone fawning over her and her voice, and it got annoying after awhile.

However, there was plenty to like about this novel as well.  I love that it’s a standalone book, not part of a series or trilogy.  (The Girl disagrees with me on that point; she thinks it would have made a great trilogy if there were more details about the Phalange, the political coup, and the teens’ parents and a better build up to the revolution.)  Despite our issues with the character development, they seemed to be realistic teens in their impulsive decisions and the intense feelings of first love.  And we liked that these characters had the courage to stand up for what they believe is right, even though it could cost them their lives.

Overall, Winter’s End was an enjoyable novel.  The writing wasn’t spectacular, but the story was intriguing.  There were some exciting, edge-of-your-seat scenes, and while there was a lot of violence, it wasn’t overly graphic.  The Girl liked it more than I did, but she’s also the target audience for this book.

Book Club Discussion (beware of possible spoilers)

The Eclectic Bookworms seemed to enjoy the book, with most of us rating it 3 out of 5 stars.  We thought it was the best written of the YA novels we’ve read as a group so far, particularly better than Ashes and Shadows by Ilsa J. Bick.  Some of us found it hard to believe that one girl’s voice could spark a revolution, but it made more sense to others if the book was indeed set in France.  (I’m not up on my French history, so not exactly sure why they thought that.)  We talked about the numerous coincidences, particularly Bart and Milena’s chance meeting given their entwined pasts, and the many scenes where we had to suspend disbelief, like when the police chief (who’s supposed to be an expert hunter) makes an obnoxiously stupid mistake and gets himself killed early on in the book.  With that scene in particular, some of us thought it seemed like the author didn’t know how to get Helen and Milos out of the impossible situation they were in on the mountain.

Some of us were disappointed by the anticlimactic ending and the unnecessary epilogue, and some of us also wanted a more developed and detailed back story.  Some of us even saw some similarities to The Hunger Games when it came to the scenes with the gladiator games.  I was especially surprised that some members wished it had been a trilogy, with the first book focusing on the boarding school, the second on the gladiator games, and the third on the revolution.  I seemed to be in the minority in wanting maybe a longer book, but just one book.

Our book for May is The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman.  I’m really excited about this one because Richman’s The Lost Wife made my Best of 2011 list!  The Girl and I are only about seven chapters in, but we’re enjoying it so far.

If you’ve read Winter’s End, what did you think?  Please let me know in the comments!

Disclosure: Winter’s End is from The Girl’s personal library. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

(from Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust)

Sixteen-year-old Lauren Yanofsky feels like she can’t get away from the Holocaust.  Her family is Jewish, her father is a Holocaust historian, and family vacations tend to involve trips to Holocaust memorials or tours of concentration camps.  When she finally understands how it has affected her family, Lauren decides she doesn’t want to read or talk about it anymore.  More than that, she decides she no longer wants to be Jewish, as she thinks the religion focuses too much on death and persecution.  Lauren wants to be a normal teenager and forge an identity that has nothing to do with being Jewish.

Lauren persuades her parents to let her attend public high school instead of the Hebrew school, but distancing herself from her religion doesn’t mean her life is suddenly care-free.  It’s hard for her to understand why she and her best friend, Brooke, are growing apart, as Brooke spends less time playing basketball with Lauren and more time partying with the “Smoker” girls.  Things start looking up for Lauren when the boy she likes seems to like her back, but she doesn’t know what to think when she catches him playing Nazi war games with his friends in the park.  Just when she thinks she has removed all traces of the Holocaust from her life, it rushes back in and stares her straight in the face.  Should she just chock it up to drunk boys doing stupid things, or is it more serious than that?  Why is she the only one who thinks running around with paper Swastika armbands and water guns is wrong?  Is it really possible for someone to turn their back on their heritage?

I admit that I was curious about this book as soon as I saw the title.  Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust is certainly attention-grabbing, and I wanted to know how it’s possible for someone to hate the Holocaust.  Leanne Lieberman raises some serious questions in this novel that are difficult or impossible to answer but provide much food for thought.  Is there a difference between the Holocaust with a capital “H,” which references the killing of European Jews by the Nazis, and other forms of genocide, such as what happened to the Armenians, which has been referred to as a holocaust with a small “h?”  How can we say “Never Again” when genocide continues to occur over and over again?  Lieberman shows how the Holocaust remains relevant today and why it is important to remember such atrocities and honor the memories of the victims.

Lieberman uses the first-person narrative and plenty of humor to keep the novel from being too heavy.  Despite the weight of the Holocaust on her shoulders, Lauren is a normal teenager; she spends much of her time thinking about the boy she likes, goes out with her friends, disobeys and challenges her parents, questions the meaning and importance of religion, and struggles to find herself amidst so much drama and change.  Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust will easily appeal to young girls, but there is much in this book for adults to ponder as well.  (Although the back of the book says the target audience is age 12+, parents should be aware that the teenage characters swear, make sexual comments, smoke, and drink.  I’ll encourage The Girl to read this one at some point, maybe in a year or two.)

Disclosure: I received Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust from the Saima Agency and Orca Book Publishers for review. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.