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wordsofclover 's review for:
The Orphan's Tale
by Pam Jenoff
3.5 stars
I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback.
In 1944, when Dutch girl Noa finds a train cart of dying babies on their way to a concentration camp at a station she works for in Germany, she doesn’t hesitate to make a split decision in grabbing one of them and fleeing with him to safety. Noa and the baby eventually come across a circus where she is employed as an aerialist. She is trained by Astrid, a Jewish woman hiding from the Nazis herself and the two form a bond as they protect each other and the baby from the frightening world around them.
This book was really interesting - it was a circus story and a world war two story all wrapped up into one. I really liked how most of the book, things seemed to be pretty ordinary and almost idyllic with both women describing circus life and the monotony of their tough, daily training regimes but then there would be an inspection and the reader would suddenly remember the setting was wartime Germany. I really liked both characters - they were similar but also different. They both had a resilience that had to be admired but Noa was definitely a bit more gentle and trusting than Astrid.
While I didn’t mind Noa’s relationship with Luc, i felt like it was very insta-lovey. He talked to her all of two and a half times and was telling her he’d never met a girl like her before. Yawn, heard that before.
There were some parts in this book that sometimes seemed a bit improbably but I don’t know a lot of history about circuses and circus travel in WW2 so for all I know life could have been like that.
I do think this book would appeal to fans of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, though it’s not quite as well written. But it’s also a story of two women struggling to survive the only ways they know how in the wartime while not being directly involved in the war effort. There’s also a fierce friendship and feeling in the book that can’t help but move a reader. I also felt both the beginning and ending of the books (prelude/epilogue) were extremely similar to The Nightingale.
I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback.
In 1944, when Dutch girl Noa finds a train cart of dying babies on their way to a concentration camp at a station she works for in Germany, she doesn’t hesitate to make a split decision in grabbing one of them and fleeing with him to safety. Noa and the baby eventually come across a circus where she is employed as an aerialist. She is trained by Astrid, a Jewish woman hiding from the Nazis herself and the two form a bond as they protect each other and the baby from the frightening world around them.
This book was really interesting - it was a circus story and a world war two story all wrapped up into one. I really liked how most of the book, things seemed to be pretty ordinary and almost idyllic with both women describing circus life and the monotony of their tough, daily training regimes but then there would be an inspection and the reader would suddenly remember the setting was wartime Germany. I really liked both characters - they were similar but also different. They both had a resilience that had to be admired but Noa was definitely a bit more gentle and trusting than Astrid.
While I didn’t mind Noa’s relationship with Luc, i felt like it was very insta-lovey. He talked to her all of two and a half times and was telling her he’d never met a girl like her before. Yawn, heard that before.
There were some parts in this book that sometimes seemed a bit improbably but I don’t know a lot of history about circuses and circus travel in WW2 so for all I know life could have been like that.
I do think this book would appeal to fans of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, though it’s not quite as well written. But it’s also a story of two women struggling to survive the only ways they know how in the wartime while not being directly involved in the war effort. There’s also a fierce friendship and feeling in the book that can’t help but move a reader. I also felt both the beginning and ending of the books (prelude/epilogue) were extremely similar to The Nightingale.