real_life_reading's review against another edition
1.0
You would think that the story of a German Jewish family trying to make it in frontier Santa Fe, New Mexico would be a very interesting story, but it was not. I don't know if it was the way the narrator told it, but I have a suspicion it was the way the author wrote it. She mixes both the story of her research efforts regarding her ancestor, Julia, with the history of Germany, Jews, New Mexico, Catholicism, Spaniards, and just about everything else that was possibly happening in Santa Fe around the late 1800s. It gets confusing and I had a very difficult time following the story. I also have to admit that the narrator's voice started to really get to me and the story just wasn't interesting enough to keep going.
stacybethi's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting story about the author's great great grandmother who lived in Santa Fe in the 1800's and is reported to haunt her family home, now a hotel. A lot heavier on the family history than I expected, including a lot of info about distant family members going to concentration camps and other distant family. Well written though.
meferguson75's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. I expected more answers about the author's ancestor. I understand that uncovering details of a woman's life in the late 19th century is difficult but when a 300 page book is based upon that premise I hoped for some long lost documentation. The focus of this book is not on her ancestor's true life experience but on the author's experience in searching for it. Unfortunately that story wasn't as interesting to me.
tiffyboomboom's review against another edition
1.0
The book was super slow going to the point where I gave up on it by the 10th page
vomit_eagle's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
A haunting and poignant look at the connections we make and the legacies we leave.
sheilaokeefe's review against another edition
3.0
Okay, but not what I was expecting. Not much actual ghost and not as much desert southwest as the description led me to expect. There is a long digression into European history, especially the fate of distant relatives in the holocaust. Another long digression into the state of medicine in the late 19th/early 20th century. I also didn't like aspects of the author's voice, a little too cloying, trying a little too hard to put deep meaning into things. Not a bad book, but not for me.
ktrain3900's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.25
To get it out of the way: if you're looking for a book about the paranormal, please read the subtitle and don't assume a book is about the paranormal simply because it has the word "ghost" in the title. That said, there is a ghost, and attempts to contact said ghost are used an organizational medium (in a manner of speaking). Where this book works best, for me, however, is in the family stories, meshing the personal with the historical, considering various points of view, essentially meeting the goal of any genealogist, which is to take words and papers and old pictures and portraits, and turn them into full, multidimensional human beings. I do have a bone to pick about the DNA bit - the author seems either to not understand how DNA is actually passed over generations, or glosses over its finer points in service to the broader story, which really annoyed my inner nerd. In the end, though, I love a good family history and genealogy, and how they can show us that we all have these stories in our own families and histories, and they are all worth telling.
sarajean37's review against another edition
3.0
Not bad. Unlike other books with relatively little in the way of primary texts, Nordhaus's search remained compelling. I was hoping for a little more actual ghost action, though.