Gretel and the Dark

Gretel and the Dark Eliza Granville 4.5 / 5	Published 2014 First Sentence "It is many years before the Pied Piper comes back for the other children."
Publisher's Description: A captivating and atmospheric historical novel about a young girl in Nazi Germany, a psychoanalyst in fin-de-siècle Vienna, and the powerful mystery that links them together. Gretel and the Dark explores good and evil, hope and despair, showing how the primal thrills and horrors of the stories we learn as children can illuminate the darkest moments in history, in two rich, intertwining narratives that come together to form one exhilarating, page-turning read. In 1899 Vienna, celebrated psychoanalyst Josef Breuer is about to encounter his strangest case yet: a mysterious, beautiful woman who claims to have no name, no feelings—to be, in fact, a machine. Intrigued, he tries to fathom the roots of her disturbance. Years later, in Nazi-controlled Germany, Krysta plays alone while her papa works in the menacingly strange infirmary next door. Young, innocent, and fiercely stubborn, she retreats into a world of fairy tales, unable to see the danger closing in around her. When everything changes and the real world becomes as frightening as any of her stories, Krysta finds that her imagination holds powers beyond what she could ever have guessed. Rich, compelling, and propulsively building to a dizzying final twist, Gretel and the Dark is a testament to the lifesaving power of the imagination and a mesmerizingly original story of redemption.
Dear Reader, A beautiful, haunting, unique book. A fascinating new take on World War II, mixed with the more sinister world of fairy tales (definitely not the Disney brand!).  Gorgeous writing with an ethereal feel to the whole thing, although it is also decidedly rooted in the horrors and everyday realities of WWII. The book alternates storytelling between two very different viewpoints and times: the first being a Viennese psychoanalyst (and those he interacts with) at the end of the 19th century, and the other being a young girl in 1940s Germany. The two stories seem to almost overlap, while at the same time remaining decisively distinct; the reader doesn't learn until the end of the book how the two are related. I don't have a lot to say about this book; the characters weren't terribly likable, but the story was so beautifully written. It felt like reading a fairy tale. Oh! I did have one thing I wanted to commend the author on: the "translations" were so well done. See, for me, reading a book that throws in a language with which I am unfamiliar (which is all of them, outside of English and French!), while lending the story more color and weight, also makes me feel like perhaps I am missing something important whenever I skim across a foreign word or phrase. However, this author did a wonderful job of guiding the reader to the meaning, working the English equivalent into a character's response, or some other almost invisible echo of the original phrase. I was thoroughly charmed by this whenever I caught the author at it, which was every time a foreign phrase was used (because I always itch to learn its meaning). So, Ms. Granville, well done on that count! Unrelated but also interesting, here are two wonderful and thought-provoking quotes from the book: "To take a man's life is not an easy thing--" "It's the easiest thing in the world," said Lilie. "It's much easier than giving birth. And considerably quicker."  and "It's easy to become a father, but being one is rather harder." (an aphorism) In this book, I loved how we were able to view Nazi Germany through a child's eyes, one who clearly didn't understand what was going on around her. Krysta made up fantastical stories to explain the strange behavior of those around her, to rationalize what she was experiencing. I also liked how this book circles back not once, but twice upon itself - repeating almost verbatim a few passages so that the reader is brought back full force to the place they began. I enjoyed that odd approach to the old in medias res.  A final note: It's easy to think that WWII has already been "done" in every way possible. This book proves that is far from true. Yours, Arianna P.S. I am, coincidentally, currently reading two other WWII books which are doing things differently - Code Name Verity and All the Light We Cannot See. More on those soon!

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Everything I Never Told You

Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng 5 / 5	Published 2014 First Sentences "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet."
Publisher's Description: A haunting debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation. Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest of the family—Hannah—who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
Dear Reader, This book was amazing. Nothing like I'd expected - and I certainly didn't expect it to be a five-star book for me, but that was a pleasant surprise. This author is just incredible. She writes her characters so well. I read this book a while ago now (I finished it about a month before writing this post, unfortunately) so I don't have as good a recollection of the story as I would like by now, but I do still recall why I rated it so highly. The novel explored the relationships between an interracial family in the 1970s, one which fosters strange imbalances: the middle daughter unwittingly takes on the hopes and dreams that her parents had always wanted but never found for themselves. They project their need onto Lydia, and the poor girl struggles constantly to be what they want from her, while the other two siblings regularly fly under the parents' radar. It's a tragic story of need and generational expectations, and I can't recommend it highly enough. This book is unique, very true, and incredibly well written. The family members are all revealed to have their own (often heartbreaking) motivations, and the author just wrote all of their struggles (both with each other, and internal ones) with such real emotion, such real personality. Some of my favorite parts were those which explained the parents' backstories, as they really revealed so much about the family's current predicament. I don't want to talk too much about the specifics of this book (if you couldn't tell with my vague writing), but I want to encourage EVERYONE to read this incredible novel about family and love and how to find happiness. Yours, Arianna

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