erin_oriordan_is_reading_again's review against another edition
4.0
I'm so glad Miranda Richmond Mouillot was thoughtful and thorough enough to research and write the history of her Holocaust survivor grandparents, both of whom are now deceased. She's so thorough, I admit I skipped around a bit in this highly-detailed memoir. It's a beautifully written book, though, and well worth your time.
alexblackreads's review against another edition
2.0
I found this so boring. Mouillot writes about her grandparents' marriage and divorce, but without much actual knowledge of their marriage or divorce. They divorced when her mother was very young and as far as I could tell, haven't spoken in decades. So Mouillot doesn't have a whole lot to go on when she was writing this and it wound up mostly being conjecture and figuring out when they were in the same cities together. I get that she cares deeply about their relationship, but she failed to make me as a reader care.
The truly unfortunate part was that the marriage was the least interesting part of both her grandparents' lives. Her grandmother was a doctor, I believe a psychiatrist, in France in the 30s, and her grandfather was a Jewish translator at the Nuremberg trials. I was way more interested in both of those things, but both were relegated to short asides, or only brought up as they related to the marriage.
I get why the author cared, but there was very little in this book for me as a reader. I was so bored while reading this. It took me almost two weeks because I couldn't make myself read more than thirty or forty pages a day.
The truly unfortunate part was that the marriage was the least interesting part of both her grandparents' lives. Her grandmother was a doctor, I believe a psychiatrist, in France in the 30s, and her grandfather was a Jewish translator at the Nuremberg trials. I was way more interested in both of those things, but both were relegated to short asides, or only brought up as they related to the marriage.
I get why the author cared, but there was very little in this book for me as a reader. I was so bored while reading this. It took me almost two weeks because I couldn't make myself read more than thirty or forty pages a day.
allieeveryday's review against another edition
4.0
This was quite good. I appreciate WWII stories that give me a perspective I haven't read before, and this was essentially a story of two people with an incredible survival story whose relationship couldn't survive the trauma of their shared experiences.
Mouillot is not a journalist, so I wasn't annoyed that her own life featured so heavily in this, because after all, it is the story of her grandparents' lives (Anna and Armand). But because she is not a journalist (she studied English and history in college), I got the sense that she didn't really know how to do the deep research necessary until very late in the game, literally as she was panicking because both Anna's and Armand's memories had started to deteriorate (in Armand's case, to the point where he imagined himself to be back in the 1940s, and had forgotten the vitriol he harbored against Anna for most of his life). Mouillot had this idealized sense of what her grandparents' marriage was, and what being a Jewish survivor and refugee of WWII meant, and therefore she had a hard time even getting her grandparents to talk about each other because she fundamentally didn't, or couldn't, understand their relationship or the experience of the war as it actually was.
I had originally planned to rate this 3 stars, but it gets the extra one for the last few chapters, when Mouillot finally digs into Armand's post-war life more fully, as he served as a translator during the Nuremburg trials, particularly during Göring's testimony. That was really powerful, how that horrific and rapid-pace work would both skim over one's brain and seep into one's psyche simultaneously, and cause additional trauma because Armand knew he was hearing his own family history.
It was good. A short read. Would recommend.
Mouillot is not a journalist, so I wasn't annoyed that her own life featured so heavily in this, because after all, it is the story of her grandparents' lives (Anna and Armand). But because she is not a journalist (she studied English and history in college), I got the sense that she didn't really know how to do the deep research necessary until very late in the game, literally as she was panicking because both Anna's and Armand's memories had started to deteriorate (in Armand's case, to the point where he imagined himself to be back in the 1940s, and had forgotten the vitriol he harbored against Anna for most of his life). Mouillot had this idealized sense of what her grandparents' marriage was, and what being a Jewish survivor and refugee of WWII meant, and therefore she had a hard time even getting her grandparents to talk about each other because she fundamentally didn't, or couldn't, understand their relationship or the experience of the war as it actually was.
I had originally planned to rate this 3 stars, but it gets the extra one for the last few chapters, when Mouillot finally digs into Armand's post-war life more fully, as he served as a translator during the Nuremburg trials, particularly during Göring's testimony. That was really powerful, how that horrific and rapid-pace work would both skim over one's brain and seep into one's psyche simultaneously, and cause additional trauma because Armand knew he was hearing his own family history.
It was good. A short read. Would recommend.
liralen's review against another edition
4.0
I took so many notes reading this book—I loved the writing. Aaaand I don't have all that much to say. As a family story, I think it's fascinating. Mouillot went after her grandparents' history because she understood that she only had so long before she could no longer access that history, or at least no longer access any memories they were willing to share of that history.
"I don't know, Miranda, when you talk about your grandparents, who are, what, ninety now?"
I nodded. "More than ninety, actually."
"Well, more than ninety, long divorced, separated by an entire ocean—what's extraordinary about them is that they're more emotionally involved with each other than most married couples who have been living together for that long." (99)
Mouillot's grandparents' relationship had never really ended, even though they refused to associate with one another and refused to speak well of one another, even though they hadn't seen each other in years and years and years. Mouillot wanted to understand why: what brought them together, and what tore them apart? But what she found was both more prosaic and more startling than she might have expected. I won't spoil it, but... You know how they say that things like loss of a child can tear a marriage apart? Well, a war, and a war's aftermath, can do the same thing. This is not a love story, but it might be a love letter to two people who loved and lost and could not or would not let go.
If this clicked for you, I might also recommend [book:I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This|28110154] for dealing with related material about family and culture.
"I don't know, Miranda, when you talk about your grandparents, who are, what, ninety now?"
I nodded. "More than ninety, actually."
"Well, more than ninety, long divorced, separated by an entire ocean—what's extraordinary about them is that they're more emotionally involved with each other than most married couples who have been living together for that long." (99)
Mouillot's grandparents' relationship had never really ended, even though they refused to associate with one another and refused to speak well of one another, even though they hadn't seen each other in years and years and years. Mouillot wanted to understand why: what brought them together, and what tore them apart? But what she found was both more prosaic and more startling than she might have expected. I won't spoil it, but... You know how they say that things like loss of a child can tear a marriage apart? Well, a war, and a war's aftermath, can do the same thing. This is not a love story, but it might be a love letter to two people who loved and lost and could not or would not let go.
If this clicked for you, I might also recommend [book:I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This|28110154] for dealing with related material about family and culture.
emilyctrigg's review against another edition
2.0
This book was very confusing. I'm not sure what it was supposed to detail--the author's life or the story of her grandparents. Nothing was in the correct order, and I found myself speed reading in order to just finish the book.