Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Postcard by Anne Berest

11 reviews

alexacath's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

An extremely powerful and moving novel. A novel I will come back to year after year. Amidst the rising antisemitism and Gaza crisis this
narrative provides a stark reminder of what (can) happen(s) when individuals sit idly by and allow fear to control their lives. The characters  crafted in this novel will leave an imprint on each reader and force individuals to confront feelings of love, loss, despair, hope, anger, and uncomfortability. A powerful exploration of history and familial healing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Genocide, Sexual assault, Antisemitism, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Death of parent, Murder, and War

amburns118's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Antisemitism, Grief, and Deportation

Moderate: Addiction, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, and Dementia

jesstaurant's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Genocide, Suicide, Antisemitism, Dementia, Grief, and War

kerri_m's review against another edition

5.0

I've read many books about the catastrophe, and this is one of the best.

It's a story about identity, survival, memory, responsibility, hope. It's about telling their story. It's about not looking away (even when the telling makes you shake and feel sick). 

While many of the details may have been imagined and the research process likely went in a slightly different order, it's miraculous that the Rabinoviches got as much information as they did. We will never hear countless stories of other lives that were stolen.

Reading it now, in 2024, feels like a call to action.

Indifference is universal. Who are you indifferent toward today, right now? Ask yourself that. Which victims living in tents, or under overpasses, or in camps way outside the cities are your ‘invisible ones’? The Vichy regime set out to remove the Jews from French society. And they succeeded.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Deportation

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Suicide, Grief, and Abandonment

knit_the_resistance's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

The Postcard is an extremely difficult book to read, as are most books about the Holocaust. It's dark, and sad. But it's also a complex family history, and a mystery. I enjoyed it, and I was upset by it. I recommend it as an analog book rather than a digital copy so you can go back and forth and check on who different characters are. 
Also, there are sections you shouldn't read before bedtime.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Rape, Suicide, Antisemitism, Dementia, Grief, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

karenleagermain's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow. I started the audio version yesterday and just couldn't stop listening. 

The memoir starts with a mystery that is not solved until the final pages of the book. Anne Berest becomes obsessed with a postcard that was sent to her mother. The postcard contained the names of four family members that died during the Holocaust. These are the author's great grandparents, great aunt, and great uncle. Berest's grandmother was the only person in her family that survived. There is no other identifying information on the postcard and Berest's grandmother has already died.

Using her mother's research, Berest pieces together her family history in an attempt to understand who might have sent the postcard. While thinking about her family history, Berest also thinks about what it means to be Jewish in contemporary times. 

The primary themes are remembering the past, bearing witness to the past, and remembering those who have died. Although this is about one family, the scope is enormous and this is an important story, reminding the reader to never forget what happened during the Holocaust. 

One more note, The Postcard is a translated work, originally written in French. It's published by Europa Editions. I mentioning this because Europa Editions publishes incredible books and I think it's important to read books published in different countries. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide

Moderate: Addiction

This is a memoir of a woman researching her family who died in the Holocaust. It has many graphic depictions of violence in the concentration camps, including murder. It's not gratuitous, but an important part of history, yet not easy to read. There are a few chapters depicting opium addiction.

mishasbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

majestictrilobite's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Hate crime, Suicide, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, and Dementia

dnpatterson2's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, and War

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infertility, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Dementia, and Classism

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

 The Postcard is an account of a Jewish family during World War II, but it differs from many other World War II and Holocaust stories in several ways. The first is genre. This is a book that straddles the fiction/non-fiction divide. You might even say it breaks what seems to be an increasingly fragile barrier. The author calls it a true novel, meaning that the story is real, her own family history in fact, but the techniques she used to tell it are taken from fiction - things like imagined dialogues and the compression of time. The structure of the book is also less common. The first part is the history of the Rabinovitch family whom we follow, via flashback, from 1918 to 1945, from Russia to Latvia to Palestine to Paris and then, sadly to Auschwitz. The second part of the novel reads like a detective story as it explores the efforts of Anne, with assistance from her mother Leila, to solve the mystery of an anonymous postcard Leila received, a postcard that was blank except for the names of her grandfather, grandmother, aunt and uncle who had all been murdered at Auschwitz. In endeavouring to find out who had sent the postcard and why, the pair discover many parts of their family history that would otherwise have been lost forever. Their search reveals - and alters - much about their mother-daughter dynamic and highlights how important an awareness of family history is to a person’s sense of identity and belonging. The third thing I want to mention about this book is that it places the Holocaust in context. It was not simply all due to Hitler but is part of a long history of anti-Semitism, a history which, damningly, continues to this day. By highlighting this, and also by showing how the French government and French citizens were not just complicit, but active participants in the Holocaust, the author attempts to correct a historical misconception and to ensure blame and responsibility is more accurately attributed. We cannot hope to prevent the past from repeating unless we accurately understand and confront that past, however uncomfortable that may be. While I wasn’t wowed by this book that way others have been  I did enjoy it and I do think it is an important book, well worth reading . It would be a shame if readers pass it by, mistaking it for “just another WWII novel” 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Genocide, Xenophobia, and Antisemitism