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popthebutterfly 's review for:
The Girl Who Wouldn't Die
by Randall Platt
Rating: 1/5
Recommended Age: 16+ (violence, antiemetic remarks, historical inaccuracies, rape, child death, inaccurate cultural information)
Genre: YA Historical Fiction (borders on the edge of straight fiction though because of the amount of historical inaccuracies)
Pages: 358
Author: Randall Platt
Amazon
I received a free copy of this book from Dayle at The Literary Llama for a guest reviewing position! Thanks! All opinions are my own.
It’s 1939 in Poland and Arab (don’t call her Abra Goldstein) knows that being Jewish doesn’t pay. Neither does being a girl. No, Arab will tell you that claiming any people at all can get a person killed—and she’s not about to let this war take her down.
So as the Nazi occupation goose steps its way into Warsaw, Arab plans to survive the way she always has: take to the streets, king her gang, and above all refuse to get involved. Disguising herself as a boy, Arab looks out for herself, stealing what she needs and selling to whoever’s buying.
But it’s a complicated war, and to stay alive, Arab will need to use all the skills the streets have taught her—and avoid every enemy she’s made along the way. Nazis, Jewish ghetto police, Polish resistance fighters, and enemies from competing gangs are all searching for her, and any one of them could sign her death sentence.
And then there’s Ruthie, Arab’s baby sister—how will shesurvive the occupation? Trying to be a hero is a surefire way to die, and Arab knows it. But there’s at least one person who believes she has what it takes. And at least one person who needs her to take a stand.
Hard-hitting and unforgettable, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die is a story about surviving, and finding hope when the world is at its darkest. – Amazon.com
I’m going to make this a brief review because there are many, many people who have expressed the same views that I’m about to and they can explain them so much better than I can. This book sounded amazing and I have wanted to read it since it came out. I knew that there was some controversy about it, but I hadn’t had a chance to read about it. When Dayle gifted me the book I wanted to go into the book blind to the controversy so it wouldn’t taint my view of the book before I gave it a chance. I read this book in one day and I will say that the writing is really good. Whatever else comes after this paragraph I will say that this author can write really well and that I might pick up another book of hers in the future.
However, there were a lot of issues with this book. The book had a lot of anti-Semitic elements in it from how the main, who was Jewish, idolized Hitler and the Nazis, to how Arab likened herself to Jesus, to how the character said and monologue a lot of Jewish stereotypes and really insulted her own culture. Her own name, Arab, is even really troubling to readers. The book has a problem with historical accuracy. The back of the book tells us that “with any work of historical fiction, the author takes great care in research”, which was sadly not true. The book missed several key events from that time period and failed to mention events that Arab would have surely during the course of the book. Some items include: The invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union within 2 weeks of Germany’s invasion of Poland and Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass where 91 Jewish people were murdered during the attack, hundreds died afterwards, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps) in Austria which Arab would have witnessed and would have had something to say about. The book also has a lot of cultural inaccuracies. The Nazis didn’t get into power by fluke. They didn’t just get to kill Jewish people just because. They came into power because they blamed the Jews for their economic issues and their downfalls from World War 1 and many people already had existing beliefs about Jewish people. This along with expert use of propaganda helped cast the Jewish in an awful light which made it so much easier for the Nazis to rise to power and to kill these people. The Polish did not have a very warm reception of the Jewish people before the invasion and Arab should have known that. The portrayal of the opposite is false in this book. The book also portrays at least two Nazis in a good light while it presents the majority of the Jewish in a bad light. And while this book has really good writing and would have otherwise been a 5/5 star book I can’t ignore the inaccuracies and the anti-Semitic language in this book. It’s hurtful to the Jewish people and it spits on the graves of those who were lost during World War 2.
Verdict: I’m not going to tell you not to read this book and I’m not going to tell you to never buy another book by this author again… but I will say that this book is not something that should be celebrated. It’s hurtful to the Jewish people and it’s a disgrace to historical fiction. Read if you want, but please go into it with these things in mind.
Recommended Age: 16+ (violence, antiemetic remarks, historical inaccuracies, rape, child death, inaccurate cultural information)
Genre: YA Historical Fiction (borders on the edge of straight fiction though because of the amount of historical inaccuracies)
Pages: 358
Author: Randall Platt
Amazon
I received a free copy of this book from Dayle at The Literary Llama for a guest reviewing position! Thanks! All opinions are my own.
It’s 1939 in Poland and Arab (don’t call her Abra Goldstein) knows that being Jewish doesn’t pay. Neither does being a girl. No, Arab will tell you that claiming any people at all can get a person killed—and she’s not about to let this war take her down.
So as the Nazi occupation goose steps its way into Warsaw, Arab plans to survive the way she always has: take to the streets, king her gang, and above all refuse to get involved. Disguising herself as a boy, Arab looks out for herself, stealing what she needs and selling to whoever’s buying.
But it’s a complicated war, and to stay alive, Arab will need to use all the skills the streets have taught her—and avoid every enemy she’s made along the way. Nazis, Jewish ghetto police, Polish resistance fighters, and enemies from competing gangs are all searching for her, and any one of them could sign her death sentence.
And then there’s Ruthie, Arab’s baby sister—how will shesurvive the occupation? Trying to be a hero is a surefire way to die, and Arab knows it. But there’s at least one person who believes she has what it takes. And at least one person who needs her to take a stand.
Hard-hitting and unforgettable, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die is a story about surviving, and finding hope when the world is at its darkest. – Amazon.com
I’m going to make this a brief review because there are many, many people who have expressed the same views that I’m about to and they can explain them so much better than I can. This book sounded amazing and I have wanted to read it since it came out. I knew that there was some controversy about it, but I hadn’t had a chance to read about it. When Dayle gifted me the book I wanted to go into the book blind to the controversy so it wouldn’t taint my view of the book before I gave it a chance. I read this book in one day and I will say that the writing is really good. Whatever else comes after this paragraph I will say that this author can write really well and that I might pick up another book of hers in the future.
However, there were a lot of issues with this book. The book had a lot of anti-Semitic elements in it from how the main, who was Jewish, idolized Hitler and the Nazis, to how Arab likened herself to Jesus, to how the character said and monologue a lot of Jewish stereotypes and really insulted her own culture. Her own name, Arab, is even really troubling to readers. The book has a problem with historical accuracy. The back of the book tells us that “with any work of historical fiction, the author takes great care in research”, which was sadly not true. The book missed several key events from that time period and failed to mention events that Arab would have surely during the course of the book. Some items include: The invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union within 2 weeks of Germany’s invasion of Poland and Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass where 91 Jewish people were murdered during the attack, hundreds died afterwards, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps) in Austria which Arab would have witnessed and would have had something to say about. The book also has a lot of cultural inaccuracies. The Nazis didn’t get into power by fluke. They didn’t just get to kill Jewish people just because. They came into power because they blamed the Jews for their economic issues and their downfalls from World War 1 and many people already had existing beliefs about Jewish people. This along with expert use of propaganda helped cast the Jewish in an awful light which made it so much easier for the Nazis to rise to power and to kill these people. The Polish did not have a very warm reception of the Jewish people before the invasion and Arab should have known that. The portrayal of the opposite is false in this book. The book also portrays at least two Nazis in a good light while it presents the majority of the Jewish in a bad light. And while this book has really good writing and would have otherwise been a 5/5 star book I can’t ignore the inaccuracies and the anti-Semitic language in this book. It’s hurtful to the Jewish people and it spits on the graves of those who were lost during World War 2.
Verdict: I’m not going to tell you not to read this book and I’m not going to tell you to never buy another book by this author again… but I will say that this book is not something that should be celebrated. It’s hurtful to the Jewish people and it’s a disgrace to historical fiction. Read if you want, but please go into it with these things in mind.