Review: Loved it! I felt like I was hearing my family's history!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 29, 2012
Wow! What a marvelous book! One way to recognize good fiction is when it tells the truth behind the bare facts. This book wasn't only good; it was great. There was such a sense of realism that I really felt like I was listening to an ancestor,who was a great storyteller, relate the tale of my family. Perhaps this was so because a lot of my own family history was from that part of Poland, Germany and Israel. However, a lot of the themes, such as the importance of family, are universal so I think that this book would appeal to a wide variety of readers.I absolutely loved the characters. Each one had a complex, well-developed, three-dimensional personality and the dialogues and narrative voice were authentic and really captured my emotions and didn't let go. I was totally immersed in the story because the wonderful imagery was vivid, descriptive, and graphic; I could really see what was happening in my mind's eye.It was only a small part, but I especially loved the section where Moishe talked about the Jewish partisans, particularly the Bielski Brothers and their saving 1200 Jews while fighting the Nazis as guerillas. I have always been offended by the myth that Jews were led like sheep to slaughter; in fact, I wrote a paper on this subject when I was in college. (I was a history major and a Judaic studies minor.)I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; even though there were parts that moved me to tears,there were even more parts that brought smiles. I highly recommend this book.