I thought this book was excellent. Rosenberg has a terrific grasp of the historical and human realities of the borderlands between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany before, during and after the War. The book is well written, the suspense well maintained, and the characters artfully developed. Well worth the read. ( )

'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.'

This review is also available on my blog: Under Literary Construction

The Girl from Krakow follows Rita's life from meeting her husband at university to changing her identity in order to survive the Nazi's mission to rid the world of Jews. A love affair, a lost child and a secret that can change the outcome of the war and put than her life in danger. Along the way she meets those willing to help her survive despite the risk to their own lives and many anti-Semitics siding with Hitler's mission. Her wits and ability to think quickly are just a few things keeping Rita and her newfound companion, Dani, alive until the America's enter the war and the Nazi regime falls.

I enjoyed this book, but there were some hurdles for me to enjoy it, mainly the language. I am not well-versed, nor have I ever claimed to be, in any language outside of English. I know the bare minimum of being able to scrape by an understanding, but that has never impeded my ability to read and enjoy a book.

This book, however, had me looking up the phonetic alphabet in order to pronounce names like Tadeusz, which I think I am still pronouncing wrong. Then there are the Nazi terms, the German terms, the Polish slang and the majority of these items weren't available for "translation" or lookup in my Kindle's dictionary. Every time I came across a new word, I would look it up and often have to leave my page and go to the internet browser to look it up there and hope there was a translation or at least a pronunciation if I could figure out what the term meant through context clues.
But let's put this aside because the novel does take place in Paris, Germany, Poland, and Moscow. Unfamiliar terms are bound to be abundant and I am willing to look past this.

I enjoyed the beginning, the middle was what kept my attention, but the end fell apart for me. If it weren't for the fact that the historical details were accurate, as far as I can tell (I am not a History major by any means), I think I would have given a lesser star review for this book.

The characters are well built and described in enough detail to form an image in my mind. Rita the Jewess that looks more German than Jew, according to Hitler's image of Jews, and speaks fluent German. I could see her in my mind, along with Urs, Tadeusz, and even Dani. All of the characters were well-formed in my mind, which is the most important aspect of a book for me because the characters tell the story.

One of my biggest issues, however, was the constant point of view shift throughout the book. At one point, it interrupted with the timeline sending the story backwards in order to catch up another characters timeline and I was a little confused as to what was going on and what year it was in the end. At one point, the shift was within a paragraph. We are understanding things from Rita's perspective and then the next sentence is from her landlady's perspective and then right back to Rita's.

I also found it hard to believe that Rita and Dani were able to learn so many languages so quickly. Rita already knows Polish and German. She then picks up on Russian, Yiddish and English. Dani just so happens to speak and understand English, but this is not known until the Americans arrive. I have difficulty believing that they are able to learn this many languages in a way that allows them to effectively communicate so quickly.

The sex scenes were a source of love/hate. I am all for adult scenes in novels meant for adults and these are actually beautifully written. Not overly erotic, not tawdry, but told in a matter-of-fact way that paints an image. But, they often don't add to the story. Of course, Rita's affair would involve sex scenes, but then there are other times the sex occurs in the story that doesn't contribute to what is occurring at the time. Sex for the sake filling a page is where the hate part of the love/hate comes in, but these are well written and didn't make me cringe to read.

Rita seems to catch a lot of lucky breaks. She happens to speak German like a German not a Jew. She meets Erich, who provides her with the right documentation. She crosses paths with Mikolaj Bilek, who also helps provide her passage at just the right time. Even when she has been "caught," she is let free because the war is coming to an end and the man in charge, the Sturmscharführer, understands that letting her go will look better for him in the end then sending her and Dani to jail. It just seems a little far-fetched that she survives as much as she does and does so without much effort.

The ending felt thrown together as if the author and editor at the last minute realized there were items not addressed. It was a little sad for me because the bulk of the story was enjoyable and lead up to this ending that just fell flat like a deflated balloon.

Now, it probably seems that there was a lot I found wrong, but as I mentioned the characters are well-developed and the historical aspects accurate. That alone made me enjoy the read. There are also some very memorable quotes that are applicable even today, such as:

Ideas spread like the germs of a disease. Like the deadliest diseases, they die out because they kill their hosts before they can jump to new ones.

I also really liked how Rosenberg effectively and easily explained Darwin's theories. Darwin is complicated and not always easy to understand. The Nazis used his theories to their benefit, but Rosenberg tells the other side of the story using Darwin's theories to explain why the Nazis will lose and how the entire war doesn't have a divine reason, but is just a part of the evolution process. Freddy explains this argument to Rita who grabs hold of it and runs, explaining it to anyone along the way in such a way that it makes sense regardless of who she is explaining it to. It was a highlight for me every time she used the Nazis reasoning against them, of course not directly to their face.

Do I wish there was a better ending? Absolutely. Were there parts of it that were boring or unbelievable? Definitely. Did that take away from my overall enjoyment of the novel? Not one bit.
( )

I really feel like there is a good story in here... Somewhere. But it's definitely not on the page.

My first error with this book came with my misunderstanding that it was fiction as opposed to non-fiction. Totally my fault, but I wouldn't have requested it had I realized that. I stay away from fiction around this time period/subject matter for a lot of reasons that I won't go into.

The dialogue was so wooden and unrealistic. This isn't helped by the esoteric conversations all of these philosophy minors college dropouts, factory workers, and doctors keep having. I don't know much about political philosophy of the times, and I didn't appreciate this narrative making me feel like I would need to take a college level course on the subject to figure out the undertones here. Nothing was expanded upon to help the reader along, instead all these conversations just felt like word vomit on the page.

The plot was just a chore to trudge through. I don't intimately know what happened in Poland after they were invaded, which made a lot of the events fly over my head. Even when the holocaust was beginning to be touched on it was hard for me to tell because of how blandly and matter-of-factly they described what was going on. There was no emotion, only facts.

I'm not giving this book the (1) star that it was to me because I'm certain that someone with more knowledge and interest in the time period/place/events would be interested in reading it. For me though I was just bored and disconnected the entire way through from all of the characters, even when terrible things were happening.

Copy courtesy of Lake Union Publishing, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

"The Girl From Krakow" is Rita Feuerstahl, a Jew who can pass for "Aryan."  She ultimately does just that, with false papers turning her into Margarita Truschenko, an ethnic German (Volks-Deutsche) from Ukraine. The book covers the period from 1935 through 1947.  Rita's story is set mostly in Poland and Germany, and ultimately in Austria.

The other main character in the book is Rita's extramarital lover, another Jew named Tadeusz Sommermann, a gynecologist.  Besides Poland and Austria, he spends time in France, Spain (during the Civil War there, where he becomes Guillermo Romero), and Russia.  Thus the author pretty well has Europe covered for this time period, as well as various scenarios for the era - the military, the Jewish ghetto, factory work, post-war United Nations work, etc.

Rita is not a particularly sympathetic character.  I don't mind sex in books, and I don't see anything wrong with a character being sexually promiscuous and adventurous (besides Tadeusz, she is sexually involved with her physician husband, later a gay man who shares her room in the Jewish ghetto, and even later a woman).  However, it all felt somewhat gratuitous in this book.  It felt like the author (who is male) felt he needed all this to spice up the story.

The big problem I have with this book is that author Alex Rosenberg is a philosophy professor, and the book, his first novel, felt pedantic at times, with the characters discussing atheism and nihilism and other such topics.  It seemed like the author wanted to get his points across at the expense of character development, for all the book's characters seemed pretty shallow.

I also did not find it particularly realistic that Rita would carry two large, heavy volumes of Darwin's works with her everywhere she went (despite the risks), nor the "secret" her gay roommate told her that supposedly put her life at risk.

It didn't help that audiobook narrator Michael Page was awful.  His British accent was especially annoying with his rather nasal voice, and his interpretations of the female characters in the book were grating.  He did a fine job with male-only voices in The Watch That Ends the Night, but he should stay away from audiobooks where he will be voicing female characters.

While I learned a lot and am glad I read the book, it won't be for everyone, and I will not be re-reading it.  I wish I hadn't wasted an Audible credit (albeit a free one) to purchase it.

© Amanda Pape - 2016

[This electronic audiobook was purchased from Audible with a free credit. This review also appears on Bookin' It.] ( )

3.5 Stars. Overall this was an enjoyable read (if you can use these words with the subject matter at hand), but at one or two points you kept thinking get on with it. It covers the period from the mid to late thirties and right through the war, as well as taking in some of the Spanish Civil War. The depravity of the times comes through strongly in this book, especially related to the ghettos and the holocaust - even worse was the way people sold out their fellow man (including people of the same faith). Overall I am very pleased to have read it. ( )