SYNOPSIS: Alina Dziak is a young teenager who has always known that she will marry her childhood best friend, Tomasz. Living in Poland during WWII means that this may or may not be a possibility in the near future. After Tomasz goes away to school in Warsaw, Alina is able to daydream about her life after he returns. Between Nazis invading and many of her neighbors leaving or being taken away, everything changes. 

Alice is a modern mother of a gifted girl with a high IQ and a young son on the Autism spectrum. Her life is not at all what she had dreamed it would be, but she will always have her grandmother, Hannah. The love and attention she has been shown continues as Hannah’s life is coming to an end. Although she has had a stroke, she has one final message for Alice, and something needs to be done about it. 

These stories intertwine to solve a family mystery around a deeply depressing and wretched period in history. 

MY THOUGHTS: How many WWII stories can one read? I often ask myself this question when I go to pick up yet another one, but I am so drawn to the hopeful stories of those who survived and those who helped others to do so. When my IRL book club picked this one I was pretty excited! Also, my mom and I tend to have similar tastes in books and she had been asking if I read this one yet. Her side of my family is of Jewish descent, and so I think my connection with this time period is just that much more meaningful. 

In the end, I really enjoyed this book. It is not my favorite WWII book, but it was beautifully done and had me tearing up in the end. The back and forth between modern times and the war made for an interesting twist towards the end of the book. I did listen to a lot of this book and the only thing I found slightly annoying was the contrast in the speed of Alice vs. Alina. There were two different narrators, and while Alice spoke fairly quickly, Alina spoke so much more slowly. I ended up switching back and forth between 1.0 and 1.25 speed to listen to the corresponding chapter at a pace that made sense for me.