The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff – 336 pages
ARC from Park Row and the author for an honest review.
Book Blurb:
1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.
Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Scorned by her friends and longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding. Ella begins to aid Sadie and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds. Inspired by harrowing true stories.
My Review: 4 stars
The Woman with the Blue Star was an inspired story about the horrors of war and the power of maintaining your individual spirit. Jenoff has a way of knitting together stories with compelling characters and consuming plotlines. I knew she’d be an author to watch since I read The Kommandant’s Girl in 2007.
This book had a premise that seemed implausible. Hiding in a sewer? Nope. Hiding in a sewer for a months? Absolutely not. But sadly, it was true. Some Jews (like the main character, Sadie) hid underground to avoid a most certain death at the camps. This was something I’d never heard of and I read a lot of Jewish/Holocaust related fiction. I’m sure Jenoff’s extensive research was what helped to make this premise seem so conceivable. I couldn’t get over the tight quarters, the stench, the loneliness and hopelessness.
Enter Ella, a young Polish woman living with her Nazi collaborating stepmother, who catches a glimpse of Sadie from above the sewer grate. Their relationship emphasizes the difference a smile or small kindness can make. Sadie, used to the dark stench of the sewer, finds hope and courage because of Ella’s visits. And for Ella, getting Sadie to safety gave her a sense of purpose.
This suspenseful, sentimental and romantic story focuses on hope, friendship, connection, familial bonds and survival. My only criticism was the title and cover art. I’m not sure where it came from, but it didn’t feel like it belonged to this story. Book clubs will devour this one. There is a lot to discuss.
Quotes I liked:
Because when people look back on the history of this time, at what happened, they should see that we tried to do something.”
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