The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

image from LibraryThing

I love big books and I can't lie!! 

This is a great one to sink into on a summer vacation afternoon...and I was lucky enough to do just that today!  Sat out on my porch with a diet pepsi cooling on the coffee table and this book in my hands!  It was wonderful!!

This is a WWII story of love and hardship and death and survival.  It's one of those that is sometimes hard to read because we know the events in history that this is going to have to bump up against. But, you can't stop reading because of the characters, because you truly care about them, you want to see if they make it and come together again!

 I LOVED IT!!!

The main character is Andras Levi, a Hungarian Jew who has won a prize to become a student of architecture in Paris.  That is how the story begins - Andras getting ready to leave Hungary for Paris and his brother Tibor sending him off.  But, there is a chance meeting with two people before he makes it to Paris. One is a mysterious older woman who asks him to mail a letter to C. Morganstern in Paris and the other is a kindly gentleman on his way back to Paris from Hungary, a Mr. Novak. 

Like all great books - these encounters set up important events and characters.  As chance sometimes happens in the interconnectedness of the Jewish world - these encounters lead Andras to life long love and occupation.

It was really interesting reading this from the Hungarian perspective - one that I don't think I have read before. I kept waiting on pins and needles for the awful Paris Jewish roundup that is the basis of Sarah's Key - another amazing WWII book. But, that didn't happen in the scope of this tale. Thank goodness!

Instead, this told the story of what it was like to be a Jew in a country that was part of the Warsaw pact, part of the losing team against the rest of the world. It also told of the kindness of Hungarians and the incredible cruelty.  It portrayed the deep divides in the Jewish classes of excess before WWII. This is a story of love and survival.

I LOVED this book!  I was transported to an uncertain and emotional world where humans can do so much more that we ever thought  - both for good and evil!!

Highly Recommend this one!!!

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

This is a powerful tale of the holocaust from the eyes and the heart of a young boy. Bruno and his family move to Out-With when his father is made commandant by the Fury. He hates the nasty little house and the fear that seems to live everywhere. But, most of all he is desperately lonely.

This changes when he decides to begin exploring. As he walks the length of the fence he discovers a 'dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy.' So begins his friendship with Shmeul.

The reader knows the realities of this concentration camp, but told through the innocent eyes of a 9 year old boy it is easy to ignore the hard bits. Reading it,made me understand how the neighboring people could justify and ignore just as Bruno was doing. Even after a year he didn't understand why the fence existed.

The ending is sad - but sad in a ridiculous way...but I can't tell you a single thing. I can't hint at the end. I can't.

The book is written in a light handed, non-judgemental way that allows all the judgement to come from the readers. My Boyne is a genius!!!

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

Another excellent read!!! Yippee...things are looking up!

This is the July book for our book club. It's the story of Sarah a 10-year-old French girl captured on an awful night in July of 1942, a truly horrible moment of French history. A moment that has been forgotten by many and that is why De Rosnay chose to tell this story!

On that night, the French police brought together thousands of Jewish families and eventually deported them to Auschwitz concentration camp. But it was not a straight deportation...instead the men were sent first, then the women and then...they didn't know what to do with the thousands of children...

De Rosnay tells this story through twin lenses. One is Sarah - the girl wakened from her bed that awful night and taken away. The other is Julia, an American journalist who has lived in France for 20+ years with her husband and daughter. Julia is assigned to write an article about the 60 year commemoration of that awful night. Through her research she discovers a connection between her husband's family and Sarah. You really care about the two characters! Sarah with a secret that drives her and tears her up and Julia caught on a path that wasn't at all what she expected.

Although the story is somewhat predictable, it doesn't keep you from rushing through the book. This is a story of layers of secrets spanning families, decades and oceans. The weight of those secrets is evident in their lives and attitudes. For some that weight is made heavier by the indifference of an entire population.

This book made me wonder at our ability to not care, our ability to turn a blind eye and choose to forget the unpleasant, and the darkness that forgetting invites into your life. It also made me wonder about how the ordinary and simple acts of people who care can have such a profound impact on those caught in tragedy!

Reminds me of Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum and The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff, with the strength of the female characters and time frame and the unexpected twists!

Read it!!!!