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[book review] Lilac Girls
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Do you believe ugly obstacles lead to beauty?
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This self-proclaimed optimist thinks they do. Isn't everything learned from what we overcome a source of great and horrid beauty?
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Martha Kelly's lilac field nods to her title and expresses this theme through the character's conversation. Kelly beautifully mentions her theme as soon as page 21, "it was hard to understand how such a sad situation could lend itself to the prettiest scene." Surprisingly, this line brought Edgar Allen Poe to the reading party. "The death of a beautiful woman in, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world." Poe would find this book equally poetic and tragic.
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Lilac Girls follows a female cast: a Nazi surgeon, New York philanthropist, and Polish prisoner. My favorite part of Lilac Girls was simply learning Ravensbruck existed. If anything, it sparked my curiosity for further research. Why hadn't I heard of the camp before? I'd read many Holocaust account, researched the topic in high school, discussed the ethic of Nazi doctors in class, etc. But I'd never heard of the Rabbits.
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Simply put, Ravensbruck is hard to categorize. It doesn't fit in. Unlike other camps, it didn't have a large number of Jews - but it did have many survivors.
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The story itself was just okay. It wasn't super noteworthy, but I enjoyed the pace. I like the multiple perspectives and Kelly's determination to end each short chapter with a brutal cliff hanger. However, Kasis's perspective was the only journey with character development. Caroline and Herta had conflicts, but they didn't seem to change from anything.
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Lilac Girls (by Martha Hall Kelly) ⚡️⚡️⚡️3/5
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S/O to @laurasloaninglibrary and @booksandmarga for inspiring me to read it!
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Synopsis: Three women from different walks of life are drawn together for better and worse through the existence of Ravensbruck, the Nazi's only woman concentaion camp.
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