Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka's Journey was my most-antipicated fall release and it did not disappoint. A little background: my book group read The Tattooist of Auschwitz and discussed it, a couple months ago. During the discussion, someone brought up Cilka and one of the women in the group called her "the prostitute". I argued that she was not a prostitute but a rape victim. Had she said "no" to sleeping with a Nazi who cornered her at the concentration camp, she likely would have been either beaten mercilessly (and raped, anyway) or put to death. She chose to stay alive and didn't fight but it was still rape because it certainly wasn't something Cilka wanted. The response amongst the group was mixed. I left the meeting feeling frustrated.

So, I was thrilled when I found out there was a new release coming soon that revealed what happened to Cilka. At the end of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, you find out Cilka was accused of being a collaborator and a spy because she slept with Nazis in the concentration camp and spoke several different languages.

Cilka's Journey begins with her release from a death camp (I think she was in Birkenau, at that point), after which she was immediately sent to another prison and then onward to Gulag Vorkuta, above the Arctic Circle. There, she was to be imprisoned for 15 years. Cilka's Journey is a novelized account of her time in the gulag, the friendships and dangers, the work she managed to acquire, and how she fell in love and was eventually released. There are flashbacks to Cilka's time in the concentration camps that help fill in the story of what happened to her while she was there, beyond what you learn of her in The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

There's also some additional material to fill out the facts of what life was like for women in gulags, at the end of the book. I appreciated that. While Cilka was a real character and much of what is in the book happened to her, Cilka's Journey is a fictional work based on facts (the author goes out of her way to make that clear) and things like the friends Cilka made in the gulag are creations by the author. But, she made it clear that Cilka was not a prostitute, as she was accused of being, but a prisoner whose life was always, always in danger and submitting to rape was one of many things she had to do to survive.

Highly recommended - A difficult but very satisfying read, especially if you were already curious about Cilka and what became of her. If you haven't read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, that's OK. Cilka's Journey stands alone fine, although I also recommend The Tattooist and I suspect the reading of Cilka's Journey is much more fulfilling if you have gotten to know her, already.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for the Advance Reader Copy!! 


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The Mirrored World by Debra Dean and a Fiona Friday photo

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean was one of those wonderful books that taught me something new about a favorite time period and also kept the pages turning, so I really was looking forward to reading The Mirrored World by the same author, even though the time period is completely different. Xenia is one of the Patron Saints of St. Petersburg.  The story of how she went from a adventurous child to happily married woman to crazy widow giving away all her worldly goods and finally a pauper living in the streets is told from the point of view of a cousin whose family took her family in after a fire.   I'd never heard of Xenia and I always choose not to read the cover blurb at the time I pick up a book because cover blurbs often contain spoilers and have ruined plenty of reads, over the years.  Unfortunately, I had a great deal of difficulty figuring out what was going on in The Mirrored World. Initially, I felt that the story of Xenia was lacking in a concrete sense of time and place -- and kind of weird, to boot. My refusal to read cover blurbs when I settle down to read was, for once, a very big problem. I probably overlooked the location, St. Petersburg, because I was so baffled by the royalty. Eventually, I gave up and read the cover blurb because I still wasn't feeling it and the sensation was, "I. Am. Lost."  Reading the cover blurb helped, although I will say that The Mirrored World was never a book that grabbed me and would not let go. Debra Dean's writing is pretty, if a bit overwrought, although judging from her acknowledgements, that's just her personal style. The sense of time and place improved marginally as the book progressed and I did learn something new, but as I'm sitting here with the book at my side, my overwhelming sensation is, "Meh." Not a book I'd highly recommend. Not a total waste of time, but I'm glad it was fairly short. 3.5/5 - Above average but not great.   And, now . . . a Fiona Friday pic that actually shows Fiona!  It's not a very exciting photo, a  shot of Fiona looking out the back door on the day we got snow.  But, lately, that seems to be about as good as it gets.  Fi has been running from the camera.    The good news is that she's been every bit as hilarious and fun to be around, whether or not she's willing to pose. Last night, Isabel was marching through the kitchen with her favorite hoodie string in her mouth and Fiona grabbed the other end.  After a brief tug-of-war, Isabel won that battle.  It was particularly funny when Izzy realized there was something holding back her string and turned around with a  "What the heck?" look on her face. Another great moment occurred on Sunday when Husband and I were watching Downton Abbey.  When we moved into our house, the cats couldn't open the cabinet doors at all.  Not so, anymore.  We were sitting on the sofa, cats happily playing chase in the background, when Fiona burst into the living room, opened one of the entertainment center doors with a single swipe of her paw and dived in.  What a riot! In other news: I'm taking an online photography course and loving it.  But, boy, does it eat a lot of my time. I'm not a technical person, by nature, so I have to read very slowly and stop to let things sink in.  Read a little, practice a little, read a little more.  Difficult as I'm finding it, I am absolutely having a blast.   What's up in your world?

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.