Helpful Score: 1
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-sandcastle-girls.html
The Sandcastle Girls is a story blending the present and the past. The present is the story of Laura Petrosian. She is a writer living with her family in New York. She is of Armenian descent, and a photograph in the newspaper sets her off on a journey through her family's past. The past is Elizabeth Endicott, a young woman who travels to Syria on a mission of mercy and falls in love with Armen, an Armenian man who has lost his family. The setting and background is the history of the Armenian genocide in the early 1900s.
I really wanted to like this book. The history it presents is not one often written about or talked about. Yet, it should be remembered.
Unfortunately, the book is difficult to get involved with. The story weaves back and forth across time, place, and point of view. The differences in the times, places, and points of view are so great that it makes it difficult to maintain the continuity of the story and especially the continuity of the building emotions.
Also, without giving a spoiler, I will say this. The ending was disappointing. It seemed somewhat related to the history being presented in that without these events, this story would not happened. However, it seemed more to be about timing and an individual decision. It made me sad, but it detracted from what the emotions of the book were all about.
I am glad for this book for the history it brings to light. I wish it had been in a more engaging way.
The Sandcastle Girls is a story blending the present and the past. The present is the story of Laura Petrosian. She is a writer living with her family in New York. She is of Armenian descent, and a photograph in the newspaper sets her off on a journey through her family's past. The past is Elizabeth Endicott, a young woman who travels to Syria on a mission of mercy and falls in love with Armen, an Armenian man who has lost his family. The setting and background is the history of the Armenian genocide in the early 1900s.
I really wanted to like this book. The history it presents is not one often written about or talked about. Yet, it should be remembered.
Unfortunately, the book is difficult to get involved with. The story weaves back and forth across time, place, and point of view. The differences in the times, places, and points of view are so great that it makes it difficult to maintain the continuity of the story and especially the continuity of the building emotions.
Also, without giving a spoiler, I will say this. The ending was disappointing. It seemed somewhat related to the history being presented in that without these events, this story would not happened. However, it seemed more to be about timing and an individual decision. It made me sad, but it detracted from what the emotions of the book were all about.
I am glad for this book for the history it brings to light. I wish it had been in a more engaging way.
Helpful Score: 1
The Sandcastle Girls is to me obviously an important work for the author. I wanted to like this story, but I found it predictable, and the narrator Laura uninteresting.
Laura did not come across as someone who was driven to find out about her Grandparents and her heritage, only curious. There certainly was not any tension in the book; you knew the end at the beginning. Elizabeth would find Armen again because he would survive. The interesting part of the book, the parts that were gripping, incredibly sad, and graphic were the pages written about the women and the children forced to march across the desert in a genocide that most of us know little or nothing about.
I am glad to have read this story, and I recommend it to everyone. It is a part of history that is little known, and stands as a memorial to the Armenian people, and their incredible courage in the face of evil.
Laura did not come across as someone who was driven to find out about her Grandparents and her heritage, only curious. There certainly was not any tension in the book; you knew the end at the beginning. Elizabeth would find Armen again because he would survive. The interesting part of the book, the parts that were gripping, incredibly sad, and graphic were the pages written about the women and the children forced to march across the desert in a genocide that most of us know little or nothing about.
I am glad to have read this story, and I recommend it to everyone. It is a part of history that is little known, and stands as a memorial to the Armenian people, and their incredible courage in the face of evil.
Don't give up on this book! I almost stopped reading it around page 150, and I'm so very glad I finished it. It's not one of Bohjalian's best but worth your time if for nothing else than the history of the Armenian people. Narrator Laura Petrosian does not tell a compelling story, and parts of it are too contrived, but as I finished the last page, I wanted more! It's the type of book that made me exclaim, "WOW!" at the end.
I am a fan of Chris Bohjalian, and yet 'The Sandcastle Girls' has been part of TBR pile for a while. I knew it would be good, but I also knew it would not be an easy read. After all, it is about the Armenian Genocide. I finally got into a mindset to read it. There were parts that were nearly unbearable. How can humans act so inhumanely? The novel added to my knowledge of the Armenian Genocide. It was also a love story and a story about a woman in midlife who has a belated urge to learn more about her grandparents and her heritage. I found this relatable. When you are young, you only see your grandparents as old. It is hard to imagine them as young people with loves, secrets, heartache, and stories to tell. This was a good read.
