By Melanie Levensohn
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Goodreads: 4.12)
GENRE: Historical Fiction
PART OF A SERIES? No
WORTH READING? Yes
SUMMARY:
In 1982, Lica confesses to his daughter that she has a half-sister, Judith, with whom he’d lost all contact, after escaping from the Nazis. Lica extracts a promise that Jacobina will search for her half-sister. The search stalls over the years, until Jacobina is spurred on by her young friend Beatrice.
In Paris, 1940, Judith falls in love with the son of a Nazi sympathizer. As restrictions on Jewish Parisians increase, Judith and Christian hatch a plan to flee the country. But before they can escape, Judith disappears.
Opening line: “'Blood…’ wheezed the old man, breathing heavily through his mouth.”
I‘m always a bit dubious going into new authors (especially someone I’ve never heard of), but my daughter gave me this book for Christmas, knowing it was right up my alley. A Jewish Girl in Paris did not disappoint.
Even without reading the blurb, I could feel this forward motion, this journey, that Melanie Levensohn is taking her reader on, to the point of when two of the main characters meet and history collides. The first couple of chapters were very slightly sluggish, but once the pacing picked up, I was very eager to find out what happened to the women, particularly Judith.
Levensohn captures/distinguishes between the different eras very well, so that the reader can really picture the scenes. Alternating chapters between Judith and Beatrice, with the exception of the first chapter, which is from Jacobina’s POV. Judith’s chapters are in 1st person, whilst the others are in third person.
I found it very unique that issues of mental illness and depression were discussed by Melanie Levensohn. That’s not something I’ve come across in an historical fiction book before. Levensohn really shows the reader the effect of the mother’s mental illness on the daughter.
I wasn’t keen on how Levensohn tried to interlace romance with the scenes about investigating the Holocaust. It sounded too contrived and cringe-worthy, not to mention seemed out of place. This attraction could honestly have been explored anywhere but here amongst the terrible WWII atrocities. E.g. by writing a whole new scene where they run into each other in a coffee shop or deli. On top of that, the reader is supposed to buy that the elderly woman who is desperately searching for her long-lost relative doesn’t mind that the person supposedly helping her is being distracted by romance. It just did not work for me. For example, one of the main characters had to investigate something about a possible Holocaust survivor “…now she had an important reason to… see the handsome vintner with the beautiful green eyes again.” It did occur to me is that since this appears to be Melanie Levensohn’s only published book, perhaps this clunky romance writing is due to a lack of experience?
This book was definitely worth reading, particularly as it is based on true events. Melanie Levensohn writes very well (with the afore-mentioned negative aspect of some of the romance scenes.)
N.B: It is absolutely not the author’s fault… but there were a few incorrect pronunciations in the audiobook version. Like typos, there really isn’t any place for these types of errors.
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