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2024 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (Hosted by Yours Truly)

My Progress:


30 / 30 books. 100% done!

2024 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama (1)
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My Progress:


51 / 51 states. 100% done!

2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

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52 / 50 books. 104% done!

2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge


36 / 50 books. 72% done!

Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

2024 52 Club Reading Challenge

My Progress:


51 / 52 books. 98% done!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

My Progress:


37 / 40 books. 93% done!

2024 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge


18 / 40 books. 45% done!

2024 Craving for Cozies Reading Challenge

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25 / 25 cozies. 100% done!

2024 Medical Examiner's Mystery Reading Challenge

2024 Mystery Marathon Reading Challenge

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5 / 26.2 miles (4th lap). 19% done!

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

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51 / 100 books. 51% done!

2024 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

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99 / 109 books. 91% done!

Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge

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52 / 52 books. 100% done!

Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge

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139 / 165 books. 84% done!

The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge

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88 / 100 names. 88% done!

The Life Skills Reading Challenge

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45 / 80 skills. 56% done!
Sunday, April 26, 2015

Distancing Non-Fiction-y Novel A Plodding, Difficult Read (For Me, Anyway)

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Despite Kläre Ente Kohler's Jewish ancestry, she's never been a particularly devoted practitioner of Judaism.  Her Jewishness exists mainly in fond memories of sumptuous Sabbath dinners with her extended family at her grandparents' luxurious home.  As an adult, her connection to the Jewish community has been tenuous at best.  With the Nazis rising to power in her homeland, however, Kläre has reason to worry.  All around her, Jewish businesses are being ransacked, their proprietors beaten in the streets.  The worse things get, the more terrified she becomes.  Many Jews are fleeing Germany.  Kläre knows her ailing husband and elderly mother can't make such an arduous journey, even if they did have visas.  But what of her two sons?  Can she find a way to keep them safe?  Unable to leave, Kläre must do what she can to help her children, her friends, and herself stay alive.  With Nazi brutality against the Jews growing more deadly every day, that will not be an easy task.  It will take every ounce of strength, courage, and tenacity Kläre possesses just to survive.  

Having grown up hearing dramatic tales about her grandfather's family's former lives in Europe, Barbara Stark-Nemon became especially fascinated by the experiences of her great aunt, Kläre.  Her debut novel, Even in Darkness, is based on the life of this indomitable Jewess who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, after which she spent many years as the unlikely companion to a much younger Catholic priest.  While Kläre's war story is (unfortunately) not all that unique, it definitely has potential to be the stuff of good fiction.  Unfortunately, Stark-Nemon bogs the story down with so much extraneous detail that the action in the novel feels anticlimactic and dull.  The characters never felt real to me, so I had trouble immersing myself in their conflicts.  Lacking a real plot, Even in Darkness seems aimless and unstructured.  While I appreciated Stark-Nemon's quietly assured prose, I also longed for more dynamic storytelling.  For me, Even in Darkness has the stiffer, more distancing feel of non-fiction instead of the enveloping warmth of a well-constructed novel.  Overall, then, this was a plodding, difficult read for me.  I enjoyed the book's message (beauty and love can be found even in the ugliness of war), but found the novel itself not to be my particular cup of tea.

(Readalikes:  Reminded me of other WWII novels, although no specific title comes to mind)

Grade:


If this were a movie, it would be rated:


for language (no F-bombs), violence and some sexual content

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of Even in Darkness from the generous folks at PR By the Book.  Thank you!
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Reading

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Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

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The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth



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2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
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2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction

2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction

2023 - Middle Grade Fiction

2023 - Middle Grade Fiction

2022 - Middle Grade Fiction

2022 - Middle Grade Fiction

2021 - Middle Grade Fiction

2021 - Middle Grade Fiction

2020 - Middle Grade Fiction

2020 - Middle Grade Fiction