The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All the beauty and pain and wonderful writing I've come to expect from my favorite author. No one quite tells the Jewish experience likes Alice Hoffman, or makes you weep with her characters, or understand the strength of women and the love of mothers for their child like she does. This story takes place during World War II and touches on the resistance, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the goodness of people in the midst of it all. I could read this again and again, and see something new each time.

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Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A small book, tightly written, and wonderfully told, Montana 1948 is a coming of age story, set in a small Montana town in 1948. The Haydens are town aristocracy, the grandfather, the retired sheriff, his two sons, the town doctor and current sheriff. It is told from the perspective of twelve year old David Hayden, as he remembers it forty years later. It is the day he stopped being a child and lost his innocence, when he realized that adults were not infallible, and those he loved could do monstrous things. As he relates the story to his wife, he discovers things about that time he had realized before, looking now through the lens of adulthood, not as a young boy.
I can't say enough good things about this novel, it's succinct, thought provoking, and beautifully written. Highly recommended.

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The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a powerful book, one that I would think about for days, and possibly reread in the future. Set against the backdrop of the civil war that broke out in Syria in 2011, it is the heartbreaking story of Nuri, a beekeeper, and his artist wife, Afra, who must flee their country and find a way to make a new life for themselves elsewhere, while dealing with severe PTSD and blindness after losing the small son, Sami.
I listened to the audio version of this, which had the advantage of hearing the beautiful language in which the story was told, but the disadvantage of not seeing the skips in the timeline, which was more obvious (I'm told) in a print edition.
This raised my awareness of a situation of which I was only vaguely aware of, and although it was hard to read of the pain the characters faced, I am glad to have read it.

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