Family Drama

Starts off a bit slow but calmly picks up momentum. Some chapters are first person, Ruth, others are flashbacks to the "original" story in which POV shifts between paragraphs. In this way the whole story unveils itself. The imposter bride leaves her new husband and baby behind and the close knit family raises Ruth. I'm sorry that Elka did not have more of a voice in the latter half. Her transition from young woman to motherly wife was not evident, but her role was important. A nice story with all other loose ends tied up.

Intriguing premise, not well executed. The book just dragged, I found myself skimming even though I am trying to read slower than usual to make my summer stack of books last longer! The story could have been more interesting, the dialogue did not feel realistic, especially when immigrants give long passages of speech in perfect, highly literate English, and most of the story was told thru the perspective of a very dull young girl.I did not find the characters fully realized, and telling me over and over that a young girl has a crush on a boy, without ever making me understand why made me feel that the author presumed that I knew him and would "just understand"... There was a lot of repetition, and the name dropping of places in Montreal was fun for me as an ex-Montrealer, but might leave those not familiar with the city wondering why one restaurant or street is different from another. The characters would do/think/see something that I felt would change the direction of their life, make it more interesting, and then that thread would be dropped. It really felt like the author had reread her childhood diaries (crushes, incidents with best friends, first contact with anti-semitism, dates, spending time with her aunt/cousins) and then incorporated another story ( a refugee's assumed identity after the war) around her childhood. Finally, the ending felt thin and hollow. ( )

While this story of a Jewish woman who escapes to America under a false name could have been an interesting one, it fell a little short for me. I wanted to know more about the main character Lily but it just wasn't provided. Perhaps that was to make the reader identify with her daughter who was also in the dark about her mother and her motives? Not sure but I think it would have been a better read if we had more about the missing woman. I also found the book confusing at points when it changed point of view in mid stream. Sometimes I had to go back and read things twice. I like it but didn't love it. ( )

This book made me imagine that author Nancy Richler, who writes beautiful prose, went to a writer's workshop one day and was asked to write something about a child being abandoned by a parent. When she submitted the original, the story of Ruth and her mother Lily, the instructor was rightly impressed, and suggested that she write the story from another character's point of view. This process might have been repeated until Richler decided to put all the parts together. This is just my imagination, but it demonstrates what the novel felt like to me. The connection between the various characters was there, but very fragile. There were too many chapters where the reader is asked to start over in order to determine who the narrator is, where in the world the action is occurring, and when it's taking place. Yes, it all fits, but it takes work to follow it from chapter to chapter and it detracts from the beautiful prose. ( )