The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris and F2F Report

I knew I would read The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris eventually, since it's a WWII novel. But, it was my F2F group's selection of the book that prompted me to buy a copy and then read it for discussion. As it turned out, I was totally not in the right mood to read about the Holocaust. But, it didn't matter. Once it came up to the top of the stack and it was time to read the book, I made myself open it and found that it's an engrossing story. No worries about not being in the right mood. It probably helped that I've missed out on F2F meetings for several months and was determined to show up.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the novelization of a true story about a young man who was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. A Jew, his family was told that they must pick one person to work for the Nazis and Lale volunteered to be the one, since his brother was married and had children. Packed into the cattle cars of a train, Lale spent days on the ride from his home to what turned out to be not a workplace but a concentration camp. There, he was told to turn over his possessions, his hair was shaved off, and he was given the clothing of a Russian soldier. On the first night, he was headed to the trench where people relieved themselves when he saw a Nazi open fire on the men who were there, a horrifying way to begin his imprisonment but one that made him vow he would survive till the end of the war.

I can't recall exactly how he became the tattooist and that doesn't matter. The job that Lale was given protected him from trigger-happy guards; and, his determination to behave in a way that would keep him from getting any attention also helped. But while Lale was given extra rations and a safer place to sleep, people were starving around him and he felt obligated to find a way to help them. The Tattooist of Auschwitz describes how one prisoner in a death camp survived, found a way to acquire extra food and medicine to share, met a beautiful prisoner and fell in love, and helped as many as he could to survive.

Recommended but what a gut-wrenching read - It's always difficult reading about life in the concentration camps of WWII but doubly hard when it's nonfiction or based on a true story, as The Tattooist of Auschwitz is. The one thing that really kept me going during a time when I was not in the mood to read about this dark chapter of history was the fact that I knew the author had interviewed Lale. Although he was safer than others, he wasn't completely safe from the possibility of brutality or death. At any moment, Lale could have been taken for torture by Dr. Mengele, whom he frequently encountered, or shot and replaced. But, if the author was able to interview him, clearly he survived.

F2F Report:

We discussed The Tattooist of Auschwitz in my book group, this week, but it was not the best discussion and I found some of the tangents immensely frustrating. It's only natural that the idea of concentration camps would bring up the current situation on our Southern Border. Unfortunately, that meant exposing some of our group's prejudices. I tried to bring up the fact that the path to citizenship is almost impossible for those who enter the country undocumented. "You mean the illegals," one of our members said. Yes, those who enter illegally but then become productive members of society can be here for 25 years, own several businesses, employ dozens of Americans, and still get deported because they don't have the option to become citizens, I thought. But, I didn't say that aloud because I was already feeling outnumbered, by that point. Immigration sadly is a complicated subject that people are determined to simplify. And, as one of our members mentioned, the news skims the surface and doesn't go in depth, complicating our lack of understanding by misleading viewers.

At any rate, we talked about the fact that The Tattooist of Auschwitz was unusual for a Holocaust book because there was a romance and therefore a happy ending, how some parts of the book felt a little exaggerated or questionable to some members, and whether or not Cilka was truly a collaborator or was she a victim of the Nazi who forced her to submit to him. I thought she was a rape victim; someone else called her a prostitute. I don't recall her getting anything in return but the chance to live, but it almost seemed like we read 4 different books. Not the best discussion we've ever had but I'm glad I read the book and I'm always glad I went to my F2F discussions because it's nice to hang out with other book lovers.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Obscura by Joe Hart

Obscura by Joe Hart takes place in the near future, when a new disease called Losian's is attacking the brains of its victims, leaving tangles of neurons that cause trance-like states, occasional violence, and other issues. It's a bit like Alzheimer's on speed and it has already killed Dr. Gillian Ryan's husband. Now, her daughter has it, as well.

When Gillian is offered unlimited funding for her research into Losian's if she'll travel to a space station, where astronauts are suffering similar symptoms, she's hesitant. Her funding is about to be cut, not only destroying her work but the chance to save her daughter's life. Gillian doesn't want to leave her daughter, whose episodes of what she calls "the fuzzies" are increasing in frequency, but the funding she's been offered may be her daughter's only hope. Gillian's sure she's on the verge of a breakthrough.

She agrees, only to find that she's been misled. But, now that she's on the ship, Gillian has no way to return to Earth and no choice but to go ahead with the job. When people begin dying violently, Gillian is suspected of murder. Even she is not 100% certain if she's innocent. But, there's no time for that. Can Gillian figure out the cause of the memory loss and violence before it's too late?

Recommended - While I didn't absolutely love Obscura, I liked it more the farther I got into it and the ending was edge-of-your-seat, violent, action-packed, and exciting. I sort of predicted what would happen in the end and was correct to a point, but I did find a lot of the book surprising and I liked the concepts and loved the ending. I'm glad I read Obscura and I know exactly which friend I want to pass it on to. Recommended particularly to fans of sci-fi and action/thrillers.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon
Copyright 2015
Doubleday - Fiction - Suspense/Paranormal
322 pp.

He was still a joke to Piper. He saw it in the way she watched him, waiting for him to screw up in some way, to let Margot down. There was something slightly amused--mocking even--in the way she looked at him and spoke to him, as if he were still an awkward little boy.

~ from p. 87 of The Night Sister

Amy, Piper, and Margot were best friends as children. Amy lived in the Tower Motel, a motel in London, Vermont with a tower fashioned after the Tower of London of English fame. After a highway began leading traffic around the town, the hotel lost its thriving business and it sat, mostly empty, the tower crumbling nearby. The friendship of the three girls faded after the year they found a suitcase full of letters written by Amy's great aunt, Sylvie Slater, who supposedly went to Hollywood but was never heard from, again.

When Amy and her family are found murdered, only their young daughter still alive, Piper returns from California, half out of concern for pregnant Margot's health but mostly because of a cryptic note Amy left behind. Margot and Piper know it's a clue and they don't believe Amy was capable of murder, but they'll have to work carefully around Margot's husband Jason to determine what happened. To find out what's going on and what kind of monster killed Amy's family, they must return to the hotel and delve into the lives of the past, to Sylvie and Rose. Rose, Amy's grandmother, is still living. And, she believes in monsters.

My thoughts:

The Night Sister is seriously creepy, but it's more frightening at the beginning and then loses a bit of its tension as the story goes back and forth in time. Still, the questions that make the book a page-turner continue to pull you through the book, even if it seems to lack the urgency of the beginning. What became of young Sylvie? What did the three girls find in the suitcase that caused them to drift apart? What's the meaning of the message about the 29th room? Are there really monsters in Vermont? Was Amy killed by a monster or did she murder her own family?

Recommended - I liked The Night Sister for the fact that the pages flew, but I confess that I found the ending a bit of a letdown and some of the answers to the questions were a shade disappointing. I think it's partly that I wanted it to go one direction and instead it went another. Having said that, I enjoyed the story, in general (I gave it 4 stars at Goodreads), and think it's absolutely right for this time of year and would make an excellent read for the RIP X Challenge, if you're participating. It did give me nightmares at the beginning, so watch out if you're nightmare prone!


©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Don't Try to Find Me by Holly Brown

Don't Try to Find Me by Holly Brown
Copyright 2014
William Morrow - Fiction
Source: Harper Collins for review
Scheduled release: July, 2014

I made the mistake of picking up a book that doesn't release till July when I was trying to find something, anything that would grab me (hence the photo of an ARC taken on my breakfast nook floor) So, if you're interested in Don't Try to Find Me, you'll have a bit of a wait but I want to go ahead and post about it while it's fresh in my mind.

Brief synopsis:

14-year-old Marley has run away, leaving a note on a white board telling her parents not to bother looking for her, she'll be fine.  At first, her mother is dumbfounded. Could she be talking in the silly language they used to use, "opposite speak"? Someone must have forced her to write that message. Marley's not the type to run away. Or is she? While Marley's mother Rachel bolsters herself with false hope and tries to bury her one and only secret, casting herself in suspicion, her father turns to social media, the news and the police in a campaign to make her face so familiar across the country that someone will undoubtedly find her.

Through Rachel's thoughts and a journal written by Marley, the reader follows the unfolding mystery from one end and the escalating horror from the other. Will Marley be found in time? Will Rachel's secret be uncovered?  What did Marley's father do to upset Marley and is his massive campaign to find her just a way to cover up the mistakes of his past or is he genuinely concerned about his daughter?

My thoughts:

First things first:  Don't Try to Find Me has been compared to Gone Girl in the publicity material. Throw that idea out the window. I haven't read Gone Girl so I didn't have to worry about the burden of comparison but those who have read Gone Girl are, I observed, not pleased. They were expecting one thing and got another. Understandable.

For my part, I thought Don't Try to Find Me was suitably gripping. It saved me from a slump, after all. Written by a practicing family therapist, the author tends to use a lot of terminology that makes her background clear but masks it by making Marley a young girl who went through therapy and then was declared cured. Marley's former therapist eventually becomes important to the storyline.

Was the book well-written?  I would say it's average, as far as the writing style. It's not highly quotable, there's nothing lyrical or beautiful about it.

Were my expectations met?  Yes and no. There was enough suspense to keep the pages turning but there's a little too much build-up over issues that, in the long run, are pretty minor (the errors of the parents).  However, the author does make it clear that being young and vulnerable are enough to lead to trouble. It seemed to me the book was as much about how easily a youngster can be drawn into a truly dangerous situation because of her youth and innocence as it was about the suspense. I found the psychological aspect pretty fascinating.  Read the comments beneath any article about statutory rape, these days, and you'll find that a shocking number of the commenters think it's no big deal -- Who doesn't have sex by that age? they'll say, excusing older men for luring an innocent, as if doing so is no longer a crime because of societal expectations.

Don't Try to Find Me is a book that reminds you that youth and wisdom don't go hand in hand, that paying attention to your child and making it easy for her to share her feelings can be crucial to her safety and that, yes, statutory rape truly is a crime because girls who are not yet of legal age are definitely not mature enough to understand what they're getting into. Kudos to the author for an important reminder about an issue our society doesn't fully understand.

Recommended - A suspenseful story that fizzles a little in the middle when you find out the parents' mistakes are not all that shocking but picks up again when you realize the danger to Marley, well plotted and believable. I don't know the author's intent but I thought she did an excellent job of portraying a young teenage girl's emotional vulnerability. There are some frightening/unsettling scenes and a bit of graphic sex, another rare case in which those scenes are actually important to portraying the characters.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee

The wake lasted for another hour or so, and probably would have gone on for hours longer had the skies not suddenly clotted up and the winds blown in yet another immense storm system, one that would hover for weeks in a slowly unwinding gyre, the sun blocked out the whole time so that all you could see in your waking and your sleep was not brightness or darkness but a waxen shimmer, as though everything were stuck behind a grimy piece of glass.

~ from p. 31, Advance Reader Copy of On Such a Full Sea (changes may have been made to the final print version)

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee is a dystopian novel set, near as I can tell, approximately 200 years or so into the future. There's no real explanation of what horrors poisoned the air and ground and caused a ragged end to civilization in the United States, although I thought the implication was that nothing was done to halt the use of damaging chemicals throughout the world, that climate change and population increases took huge tolls and that the political climate in the U.S. eventually became so unstable that the country basically went to pieces.  Those are all just suppositions on my part.

The central storyline in On Such a Full Sea revolves around a tiny young lady named Fan who lives in a complex in the former city of Baltimore (now known as B-Mor), a labor-class village that has been around for just over 100 years, since the ancestors of the current residents were brought over from China.

Fan works in the fish tanks that supply meat for the Charters, the wealthiest and most intelligent people, who have closed their own communities to all but those from whom they purchase goods or services. It's very rare for someone in a place like B-Mor to pass the stringent tests that will allow one to cross over to life in a Charter village. Outside of B-Mor is the county, where people who are for some reason unable to live in either the Charter or labor villages live bleak and dangerous lives.  People are captured, traded or killed if they're not considered of any value in the county. Nobody outside B-Mor can be trusted. Seriously, nobody.

Fan is especially good at her job and she loves it but now and then someone is called in by the authorities and never seen again, and this happens to Fan's boyfriend, Reg.  Reg is also good at his job harvesting vegetables and he's not a troublemaker, nor is he sharp enough to have passed the test that would allow him the rare opportunity to move up to a Charter village. Distraught and knowing that she is carrying Reg's child, Fan leaves her safe village life and comfortable job to search for Reg.

The story of what happens to Fan after she leaves B-Mor comprises the bulk of On Such a Full Sea but the author veers back and forth between descriptions of life in B-Mor and how the disappearances of Fan and Reg impacted the people of the village to what became of Fan when she abandoned her home to search for the love of her life.  Her search for Reg takes her from one danger to another and it is in her growing ability to react to each of these dangers that Fan shows herself to be tiny on the outside but a powerhouse in other ways.  I really liked Fan.

Vocabulary word:

penumbra: The partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.

"When her eyes adjusted, Fan could see in the penumbra that they were in a kitchen of sorts [. . . ]"

Noteable:  Chang-Rae Lee introduced me to Vincent Van Gogh's Almond Blossom, a lovely painting I somehow missed in spite of being a casual Van Gogh fan.

Recommended - On Such a Full Sea is written with complex beauty and admirable world building. Its dense prose makes the book a slow read but although it took seemingly ages to get through the book, there was both a feeling of familiarity (as there often is in dystopian worlds, which tend to feature sharp divisions between the privileged and oppressed) and a uniqueness that eventually kept me glued to the pages.

Belated Fiona Friday.  I was going for the flower-adorned glamour shot but this is what I got from Izzy:

Happy Weekend!

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.