Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Literature & Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: March 27, 2018
Disclaimer: Thank you to Gallery Books. I won an ARC copy of this via Goodreads giveaways.
Despite betrayal—from her country and her husband—Ruby just wants to survive World War II, but what she doesn’t expect is to find love, strength, and a reason to live.
“My dear, it is not your fault. Sometimes all the love in the world can’t protect a person against his fate.”
Ruby is young and naive when she allows Marcel Benoit to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away, from America to France, where they would make a life. As World War II ramps up, Ruby refuses to head back to America, secure in her belief that the Nazis won’t make it as far as France and refusing to abandon her husband. Shortly after that, she’s proven wrong, as the Nazis roll through Paris. Slowly, the Jews living in the city have their rights stripped away, one by one, and dissenters are taken care of. The only thing Ruby knows is she doesn’t want to sit by and do nothing while her city, and the people living there, are destroyed.
Meanwhile, in Britain, Thomas enlisted in the British Royal Air Force planning on fighting Nazis and winning the war for the Allies. What he doesn’t expect is his mother to be killed in a bombing, and him being helpless to stop it. When his plane is shot down over France, he has to rely on the kindness of others to survive Nazi-ridden France, and in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, in a room on Rue Amelie, he remembers exactly why he wanted to fight in the first place.
☙ No, that’s okay, I didn’t really need a heart, anyway. It’s a purely overrated organ, after all. From the very first chapter, it was beaten, bruised, tugged on, and eventually ripped out, filleted, stomped, and obliterated. But, like, in a good way? Right from the start, it’s clear that at least one of the main characters is going to die, because the first chapter is written without names and the woman says, “She should be here, though, not me. It always should have been her.” While reading, this was constantly looming over my head, and I knew I wasn’t going to like the ending, but World War II happened and we all know what went on, so of course I wasn’t going to like the ending. But good god, I cried like you would not believe and just … ugh. No one asked for all these feels, okay?
☙ I had to force myself to put it down every now and then so I could go pretend to function like a normal human. Once I’d started, I didn’t want to stop reading. I just had to know what was going to happen. Actually, this is partly a lie, because I did set it down for a while to adult, but by day two of reading it, I rearranged my schedule so I could read it because I HAD TO KNOW. I just had to. Even though I was sure it was going to break my heart (and rest assured, it did).
☙ Ruby and Charlotte are smart, strong characters, at a time when this totally wasn’t okay if you happened to be female. More than that, they dared to be American and Jewish, respectively, in German-occupied France during World War II. I KNOW! The nerve. They made really strong lead characters, and the way others treated them made me want to kick someone. Their relationship was beautiful and well done, and I just absolutely fell in love with these characters and wanted everyone to have a happy ending.
☙ I cheated because I JUST HAD TO KNOW, DARN IT. I totally skipped ahead and spoiled things for myself because I was so invested in the darn characters that I just wanted to know how it was going to end for them. Not all of it, but when I was 75% of the way through, I did just sneak a little peak towards the end, and it almost made the build-up all the more bittersweet. I knew there would be no happy ever after, but I was so in love with the characters that I kept hoping that just maybe . . .
☙ Despite the characters being fictional, the struggle was real, and the emotional roller coaster ride is well worth it. Even if you puke once or twice along the way. I laughed. I cried. My chest blossomed full of hope and joy. I made all the requisite “awww” sounds at the meet-cutes. I have no fingernails left because I imagined biting them would somehow spare the characters’ suffering (it did not, I’m sad to report). At this point, I am one big jumble of spent emotions and I don’t know what to do with myself. But the bigger thing to keep in mind is: THIS WAS REAL. The exact situations, no, but the emotions: the fear, the hope, the hopelessness, the faith, and the loss. Any book like this is really hard to read, but that’s part of what makes it so important.
☙ God, I’m so sad; I need cake and a tub of ice cream and probably a pack of tissues. This book hit home on sooo many issues. So. Freaking. Many. Right from the start, anyone who’s been happily married understands the constant turmoil over the fact that one of you will eventually die and the other has to watch it. THAT’S HOW IT OPENS. This book pulls no punches. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, of course, and there were a lot of really heartwarming moments, but the characters were all so relatable and I was pulled in so many different directions. It. Was. FABULOUS.
☙ This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: TRIGGER WARNING. It’s not really a negative. I mean, most people go into reading a book about World War II with certain expectations, but one thing in particular caught me by surprise and I wasn’t quite ready for it. TRIGGER WARNING: miscarriage, death, racial slurs.
THERE WERE SO MANY FEELS. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Ultimately, the book was fabulous in all the best and worst ways. It dealt with the subject matter tastefully, but in a way that was true to the brutality and darkness of the time period. Harmel did a wonderful job of making World War II come alive, and I just fell in love with most of the characters. The ending tore me up, but I have to say that it was a beautiful, fitting ending, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. I’d highly recommend this, as long as you can handle the subject matter.
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