Book Review: Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz

Wednesday 31 August, 2011 by 10 Comments

Title: Displaced Persons
Author: Ghita Schwarz
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition
Publication Date: August 23, 2011
Paperback: 368 pages
ISBN: 978-0061881770
Genre: Historical Fiction

From the Publisher:

In May 1945, Pavel Mandl, a Polish Jew recently liberated from a concentration camp, finds himself among similarly displaced persons gathered in the Allied occupation zones of a defeated Germany. Possessing little besides a map, a few tins of food, and a talent for black-market trading, he must scrape together a new life in a chaotic community of refugees, civilians, and soldiers. With fellow refugees Fela, a young widow, and Chaim, a resourceful teenager with impressive smuggling skills, Pavel establishes a makeshift family, as together they face an uncertain future. Eventually the trio immigrates to the United States, where they grapple with past traumas that arise again in the everyday moments of lives no longer dominated by the need to endure, fight, hide, or escape.

Ghita Schwarz’s Displaced Persons is an astonishing novel of grief, anger, and survival that examines the landscape of liberation and reveals the interior despairs and joys of immigrants shaped by war and trauma.

My Review:

Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz is a moving narrative of Jews displaced by the ravages of the Nazis and the decisions made by one family during the course of the decades following World War II.  Schwarz brings her characters to readers with very real and flawed personalities and in such a way that it is as if readers know these characters.  As we learn how Pavel, Fela, and Chaim all encountered their own individual struggles in the aftermath of the war where they were given the title “displaced person” or DP for short, Schwarz captures in vivid detail the life of these DPs in refugee camps where each had but a few possessions remaining after they lost almost everything to the Nazi occupations.  Displaced Persons is about sorrow, perseverance, endurance, and rebirth, and readers will feel nothing less than inspiration after witnessing the overcoming of suppressing and adverse conditions experienced by Jews who survived the Nazi occupations and the Holocaust.  This is not a simple or light read, but one that will give pause for reflection as readers are shown the dichotomy of emotions experienced, for example, where some were comforted by the liberation yet still had feelings of despair amidst the refugee camp conditions.  Told in three parts with the first exploring the immediate aftermath of the war, and the other parts looking out to the decades that followed where many of the refugees eventually emigrated to the United States, the long-lasting effects of the traumatic experiences of these people become evident as the characters search for meaning and release from the memories that no one should have to retain.  I strongly recommend Displaced Persons to readers looking for a deeper exploration of the long-term impacts of the Holocaust for this novel recognizes that the lasting injuries of survivors are not all physical.

To learn more about author Ghita Schwarz, please visit her website: www.ghitaschwarz.com

For more reviews of the book, please follow the TLC Book Tour.

I received a complimentary arc of Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


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Book Review: Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant

Tuesday 30 August, 2011 by 11 Comments

Title: Wherever You Go
Author: Joan Leegant
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition
Publication Date: July 25, 2011
Paperback: 253 pages
ISBN: 978-0393339895
Genre: Historical Fiction

From the back of the book:

In this sweeping and beautifully written novel, Joan Leegant weaves together three lives caught in the grip of a volatile and uncompromising faith. Yona Stern has traveled to Jerusalem from New York to make amends with her sister, a stoic mother of five dedicated to the hard-line West Bank settlement cause. Mark Greenglass, a gifted Talmud teacher and a former drug dealer saved by religion, has lost his passion and wonders if he’s done with God. Enter Aaron Blinder, an unstable college dropout with a history of failure who finds a home on the radical fringe of Israeli society. Emotionally gripping, timely and prophetic, Wherever You Go tells the story of three Americans in Israel and the attractions-and dangers-of Jewish religious and political extremism.

My Review:

Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant is a beautifully uplifting debut novel about three Americans, living in Israel, who struggle for religious and political identity.  In times where religious and political extremism are becoming increasingly a concern for many, Leegant touches on this subject in a delicate, yet true to life manner that will give readers more than just a glimpse at the draw of extremist views.  As the three main characters, Yona, Aaron and Mark each has their individual motivations for coming to Israel, Leegant capitalizes on these unrelated characters to build her story into a message far greater than the sum of the characters’ reasons for their actions.  A book about spirituality in a rigid faith, Leegant portrays the challenges and obstacles faced by these characters as they are brought together through a tragic event.  Told with changing perspectives, Wherever You Go gives different points of view as the story unfolds, a writing style that I think really worked well for such a weighty and personal subject.  I strongly recommend Joan Leegant’s debut, Wherever You Go to all readers and I think book discussion groups will find Wherever You Go a fascinating book to examine.

To learn more about author Joan Leegant, please visit her website: www.joanleegant.com

For more reviews of the book, please follow the TLC Book Tour.

I received a complimentary arc of Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


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Book Review: Snapped by Laura Griffin

Tuesday 30 August, 2011 by 6 Comments

Title: Snapped
Author: Laura Griffin
Publisher: Pocket Star
Publication Date: August 30, 2011
Paperback: 432 pages
ISBN: 978-1451617368
Genre: Romance Mystery, Suspense

From the Publisher:

SOPHIE BARRETT THINKS SHE’S LUCKY TO BE ALIVE. SHE MAY BE DEAD WRONG.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, Sophie Barrett walks into a nightmare. A sniper has opened fire on a college campus. When the carnage is over, three people—plus the shooter—are dead and dozens more are injured. Sophie escapes virtually unscathed. Yet as details emerge from the investigation, she becomes convinced that this wasn’t the random, senseless act it appeared to be. No one wants to believe her—not the cops, not her colleagues at the Delphi Center crime lab, and definitely not Jonah Macon, the homicide detective who’s already saved her life once.

Jonah has all kinds of reasons for hoping Sophie is mistaken. Involving himself with a key witness could derail an already messy investigation, not to mention jeopardize his career. But Sophie is as determined and fearless as she is sexy. If he can’t resist her, he can at least swear to protect her. Because if Sophie is right, she’s made herself the target of a killer without a conscience. And the real terror is only just beginning. . . .

My Review:

Snapped by Laura Griffin is a brilliant suspense novel about a highly specialized forensics team.  Griffin has successfully written a series of tantalizing stories based on a group referred to as Tracers, a specialized and eclectic group of Forensic experts.  Snapped, Griffin’s fourth in this series, reads as a stand alone novel, but I highly recommend her previous three as they are equally suspenseful and intriguing.  Inspired by the true events of the University of Texas at Austin shooting in 1966, events witnessed by Griffin’s mother, Snapped will hold the attention of its readers until the last page as a college campus sniper kills three but Sophie Barrett, who avoids injury, begins to see the shootings as something beyond an impulsive act of violence.  As Jonah Macon becomes involved in the investigation, and with Sophie, will Jonah be able to objectively carry out his investigation?  Held in suspense through much of the story, readers will be compelled to keep reading as the plot unfolds with its many twists and turns.  I highly recommend Snapped to those readers looking for an excellent suspense thriller mixed with romance as Griffin’s fourth in the Tracer series will provide both of these.

To learn more about author Laura Griffin and her books, please visit her website: www.lauragriffin.com

I received a complimentary arc of Snapped by Laura Griffin from Gallery Books Publicity to review. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.


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Teaser Tuesdays – Creep by Jennifer Hillier

Tuesday 30 August, 2011 by 67 Comments


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

    • Grab your current read
    • Open to a random page
    • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
    • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
    • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“This should have been the happiest time in her life.  She’d never been so miserable.”

Page 31, Creep by Jennifer Hillier


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Book Review: The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard

Monday 29 August, 2011 by 6 Comments

Title: The Good Daughters
Author: Joyce Maynard
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition
Publication Date: August 23, 2011
Paperback: 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0061994326
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

They were born on the same day, in the same small New Hampshire hospital—but Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson are different in nearly every way.

Ruth is an artist, a romantic with a rich, passionate, imaginative life—the fifth daughter born to a gentle, caring farmer and his stolid wife. Raised by a pair of capricious drifters, Dana is a scientist and realist whose faith is firmly planted in the natural world. From the 1950s to the present, the lives of the “birthday sisters” parallel and oddly intersect, as each struggles to find her place in a world in which she has never truly felt she belonged. Sharing little except a birth date—and a love for Dana’s wild and beautiful older brother, Ray—two virtual strangers will travel alternate paths winding through first love, first sex, marriage, parenthood, divorce, and tragic loss…until both are forced to reevaluate themselves and each other when past secrets and forgotten memories unexpectedly come to light.

My Review:

Heart breaking, beautiful, and life affirming, The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard tells the story of Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson, known as the birthday sisters. On July 4, 1950 at the peak of strawberry season in Bellersville Hospital, Edwin and Connie Plank welcomed their 5th daughter into the world and two hours later, the Dickersons were greeting their second child and their first daughter. Maynard writes a beautiful, moving novel, and from the beginning it is fairly obvious what will eventually be confirmed, however knowing does not detract from the story. The heart of The Good Daughters consists of the stories told through Ruth and Dana, two women who have lived dramatically different lives, yet each learned so very much from Edwin Plank, the lessons they have each accumulated over their respective fifty plus years of life, love, loss, and family. I found myself deeply engrossed in each woman’s story and noticed I particularly looked forward to the sections where Dana’s voice came through as I formed quite a fondness for Dana and her life with Clarice.  The Good Daughters is rich in detailed prose and an absolute delight to read even through the sadness and hardships told by Ruth and Dana. I would recommend The Good Daughters to anyone who is interested in reading a beautiful novel.  A word of caution, the reader may want to keep some tissues close at hand.

To learn more about author Joyce Maynard, please visit her website: www.joycemaynard.com

For more reviews of the book, please follow the TLC Book Tour.

I received a complimentary copy of The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


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