The World That We Knew

Want to read a book about coming of age in Nazi occupied France? What [b:All the Light We Cannot See 18143977 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451445646l/18143977.SY75.jpg 25491300] wishes it was. Historical fiction + magical realism. Love and sacrifice. Survival. Heartbreaking. All the stars.

Thrilling and devastating in equal measure. This is such an interesting and deeply-situated take on the story of the golem, which I loved. I loved how deeply Jewish this novel is, which seems like an obvious thing to say, but I find a lot of Holocaust fiction is sort of divorced from Jewish culture and faith because it is interested in the horrors and violence of the Shoah, and I think Hoffman did a great job of writing a Jewish magical realism novel set during the Holocaust, rather than a Holocaust novel that happens to be magical realist.

This is my last Alice Hoffman book. I love her plots and ideas - and this one sounded so promising. But I failed to connect with the characters again. I think it's the writing style that always keeps me at a distance.

This is one of those multi-character narratives where I sometimes lose track of who's who but its beautiful and made me both sad and filled with hope about humanity.

Highly recommended for everyone but small childeen.

To be fair, when your exemplar of the form is All the Light we Cannot See, everything else suffers by comparison. It's clear this book is well loved and honestly, the hand-sell is pretty solid. WWII drama focused on three young girls struggling to survive and finding hope with the help of a bit of magical realism.

And yet.

Death and danger abound but it felt perfunctory. I felt no stakes even as the roster of characters is slowly whittled down.

These kids are just so remarkable. Julien is a math prodigy and an adept teacher. Victor a natural explosives expert with the French Resistance. Etti of course is nothing short of a full blown wizard able to conjure life itself. And Lea is in possession of a monstrously strong golem who spends most of the time making bread and dancing with a heron. Why are these two on the run again?

These trappings are more suited to a YA fantasy set in a some dire, post-apocalyptic world instead of trying to balance these fantastical elements against the real-world backdrop of Nazism. A bit of a swing and a miss for me.