Helpful Score: 7
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I love WWII fiction and couldn't wait to read it...once I started, I couldn't put it down, it pulled me right along to the end. It's supposed to be quirky, but some of it I just don't buy: Anna's romance with the POW (not the fact that it happened, but they WAY it develops), or the fact that a POW would be able to travel across Germany with a family and never be questioned once. I also found the writing to be all over the place, quite repetitive, and the emotion never subtle. For example: "a stain the color of rotting cherries was waxing imperceptibly into a moon around the crater in the lieutenant's chest." huh? And the love scenes...Anna is a young girl growing up in the thirties? Her gallivanting about unchaperoned with an enemy prisoner, and the extent of their "secret" dalliances: I didn't believe it for a second.
There were two characters I really empathized with: the boy Theo and Uri (Anna and the Scottish prisoner, on the other hand, have the depth of cardboard cutouts). Uri is a Jew who escapes a death train, disguises himself as a German officer, and wreaks havoc on any Nazi he can find--to the extent that his revenge is just as odious as the wrongs he is responding to. His joining up with an aristocratic German family, although unexpected, prompted some of the more interesting character interactions. Uri's presence begs the question of morality, and who is to blame for war crimes: the state? It's citizens? And how much revenge is then justified? By default, Uri's history casts him the only character whose bloody hands are deemed acceptable...but is this *gasp* cliche?
I became rather attached to young Theo, a compassionate boy who loves animals, cares genuinely about people, and is slowly becoming "Nazified" by the culture he is exposed to. One of my favorite scenes was when Theo wrote letters to German soldiers on the front. His innocent chatter tinged with patriotism, and his "heil" sign-offs, is a disturbing reminder of cultural and national influence and control. Should we feel guilty for liking Theo because of what he may be becoming?
The side story of the Jewish women, although illustrating an important part of history that shouldn't be forgotten, didn't mesh well with the rest of the story (because it is still not socially acceptable to write a book about WWII and NOT have a side story about the holocaust. Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks did this too, to similar effect). The subject is heart-wrenching, but I felt it belonged either in it's own book, or needed to be more closely tied to the main action. At any rate, it was thoroughly disturbing...which is not a bad thing.
I liked how the author Mr. Bohjalian used a different viewpoint--that of a German aristocratic family--to show the war from "the other side", a side I'd be interested in reading more about. Overall, a fast paced, gut-wrenching, if a far-fetched and emotionally heavy-handed read.
There were two characters I really empathized with: the boy Theo and Uri (Anna and the Scottish prisoner, on the other hand, have the depth of cardboard cutouts). Uri is a Jew who escapes a death train, disguises himself as a German officer, and wreaks havoc on any Nazi he can find--to the extent that his revenge is just as odious as the wrongs he is responding to. His joining up with an aristocratic German family, although unexpected, prompted some of the more interesting character interactions. Uri's presence begs the question of morality, and who is to blame for war crimes: the state? It's citizens? And how much revenge is then justified? By default, Uri's history casts him the only character whose bloody hands are deemed acceptable...but is this *gasp* cliche?
I became rather attached to young Theo, a compassionate boy who loves animals, cares genuinely about people, and is slowly becoming "Nazified" by the culture he is exposed to. One of my favorite scenes was when Theo wrote letters to German soldiers on the front. His innocent chatter tinged with patriotism, and his "heil" sign-offs, is a disturbing reminder of cultural and national influence and control. Should we feel guilty for liking Theo because of what he may be becoming?
The side story of the Jewish women, although illustrating an important part of history that shouldn't be forgotten, didn't mesh well with the rest of the story (because it is still not socially acceptable to write a book about WWII and NOT have a side story about the holocaust. Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks did this too, to similar effect). The subject is heart-wrenching, but I felt it belonged either in it's own book, or needed to be more closely tied to the main action. At any rate, it was thoroughly disturbing...which is not a bad thing.
I liked how the author Mr. Bohjalian used a different viewpoint--that of a German aristocratic family--to show the war from "the other side", a side I'd be interested in reading more about. Overall, a fast paced, gut-wrenching, if a far-fetched and emotionally heavy-handed read.
Helpful Score: 5
A German family must flee their home and head west to try to outrun the Russian army. A young French Jewish girl is living through the atrocities of a concentration camp and death marches. This story is told from a variety of viewpoints (Cecile, the French girl; Anna, the German daughter; Theo, the German son; Callum, the Scottish POW; Uri, the vigilante Jew living a double life) which makes for a very interesting story. It is moving, deeply disturbing, and shows the horror of war. Recommended if you enjoy WWII fiction.
Helpful Score: 4
Chris Bohjalian does not disappoint in his latest novel which chronicles the journey of a family to safety during WWII. I learned a lot about history and the conditions under which Germans, both Jewish and non struggled. One of his best so far!
Helpful Score: 2
Not easy to read at some parts, this book allowed me a personal look into the lives of those living in East Germany and Poland during the last months of WWII. I really enjoyed this book.
Helpful Score: 2
This was a good book but did disappoint as compared to other books by this author. It was a bit too predictable and familar.
Helpful Score: 2
Very different from Bohjalian's other novels. This takes place in Germany at the end of WW II and portrays a German family fleeing their home from the advancing Russian army. It is also a love story between a German girl and a Scottish POW as well as delving into wartime atrocities and the Holocaust.
Helpful Score: 1
As the end of WWII approaches in Germany, an unlikely group of people begin to flee the Russian army approaching from the east, hoping to reach safety either with the Allied troops driving westward or perhaps in some German sanctuary. The lives of the remnants of a once-prosperous Prussian farming family, the Scottish POW who had been assigned to work for them, an escapee from a Jewish death train, and a Frenchwoman imprisoned in a work camp coil and swirl around each other as they try to survive just one more day. Beautiful and terrible
Helpful Score: 1
A well-written and compelling story about a harrowing slice of history. Once I started, I couldn't put it down.
I enjoyed this book, held my interest. It gave the perspective of ordinary Germans who were caught in Nazi insanity, their escape from the Russians, their collective guilt for their actions or inactions. I was a bit disappointed at the end, it was abrupt and I didnt feel there was "closure" but maybe that was the author's point, there will never be "closure" for the victims - all the victims of the time.
This was hard for me to get into at first but by the middle, it was starting to come together. The ending was bittersweet. I still cannot believe the atrocities that so many ppl experienced.
A very powerful and moving look at a German family fleeing the Russian army's advance at the end of WWII. Highly recommended.
I am a Chris Bohjalian fan and I was very satisfied with this book, although it is a little different than his others. In most of his writing, I find very ordinary characters going through a crisis of one kind or another and the impact it has on their life. In Skeletons at the Feast you have ordinary people whose lives have become part of a universal horror. This horror is collective and all of the characters share in it. The tragedy is all encompassing and nobody escapes the ramifications of a world they do not control. The book has a lot to say about tolerance, forgiveness and bravery. The book also reminded me that we are ALL a part of the human race and are responsible for each other.
This book, based on a diary, takes place during the waning days of WWII when the Russian army is advancing through Germany. A Prussian family flees its estate, taking with them a Scottish POW who worked on their land. This is a novel of hope cast against horror, and the phrase "skeletons at the feast" is a haunting reference to the realities of war. Bohjalian has deviated from his standard topics to write this book, but the excellence of his prose and thorough research remain. This is a not-to-be-missed novel that will stay with you.
A very powerful and moving look at a German family fleeing the Russian army's advance at the end of WWII. Based somewhat on a true story taken from a holocaust survivor's diary. It covers the viewpoints f the East Germans fleeing, a French Jewish woman and how her group of young women were tortured and killed, an escaped Jewish man who hides by killing German and then Russian soldiers and assuming their identities, a Scottish POW. It really drew me in.
Several different stories, told at the same time. I thought this might get confusing, or distracting, but it was not. I found this book very compelling. One of those that you make time to read. This is another of Bohjalian's masterpieces.
An interesting new twist in stories of the Holocaust. I've read several, mostly from survivors' points of view. This story (based on the diary of a German family's matriarch) takes you to a group of diverse people all fleeing the invasion of the Russians: an aristocratic, wealthy German family, a POW, a Jew disguised as a German officer, and also the story of a survivor of the camps. Their individual stories all converge. Highly recommend this book! D.
I do not know how I feel abut this book. It is the waning days of WW-2 and the story is about two marches, one in the German point of view.
The death march of the young Jewish girls to nowhere was brutal, tragic, hard to read without wanting to throw up! I know these things happened and I read most books about the Holocaust, but for some reason, this one just got to me.
The other march was with a German family, who adored Hitler and his blue eyes, (I wanted to throw up again). They had to leave their beloved home because the horrid Russians were coming, and they were raping women and killing everyone in their path, so they said. They had a British POW with them, young Anna's lover, who was "given" to them to help at their farm. So they trekked west hoping to cross the German lines to the Americans or British. On the way, they were joined by Uri, a Jewish man, dressed as a German Officer, who escaped one of the cattle cars.
There were times I wanted to put this book down and not finish, but I was unable to do that. So I toiled to the end and still can't say that I loved, liked, enjoyed, the book. I was just was just too angry and it was too brutal.
The death march of the young Jewish girls to nowhere was brutal, tragic, hard to read without wanting to throw up! I know these things happened and I read most books about the Holocaust, but for some reason, this one just got to me.
The other march was with a German family, who adored Hitler and his blue eyes, (I wanted to throw up again). They had to leave their beloved home because the horrid Russians were coming, and they were raping women and killing everyone in their path, so they said. They had a British POW with them, young Anna's lover, who was "given" to them to help at their farm. So they trekked west hoping to cross the German lines to the Americans or British. On the way, they were joined by Uri, a Jewish man, dressed as a German Officer, who escaped one of the cattle cars.
There were times I wanted to put this book down and not finish, but I was unable to do that. So I toiled to the end and still can't say that I loved, liked, enjoyed, the book. I was just was just too angry and it was too brutal.
