A review by adamsw216
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany by Gwen Strauss
4.0
The Nine is the story of nine incredible women who were part of the French Resistance during World War II, caught, imprisoned in a concentration camp, and escaped from the Nazis to survive the war. I highly recommend learning more about this story as another important piece of history that should not be forgotten.
Author Gwen Strauss weaves the story together by juxtaposing the background information of each individual woman with the narrative story of their life in the concentration camp and eventual escape. The result feels a little cumbersome, but I think it works well enough. Additionally, Strauss readily admits that she has had to make some inferences at the edges of what facts she was able to gather. I presume a vast majority of the dialogue presented in the narrative parts of the story are of her own invention based on the few notes and letters the women wrote after the war, recounting their story. Also, Strauss has this strange habit of repeating statements that were just given a few sentences back several times throughout the text. That being said, Strauss' contributions to the narrative seem are minimal enough to allow the feel of the story to accentuate the facts, and not the other way around. I also did appreciate the parts of the story that included details of the author's journey to ascertain interviews and documents that allowed her to write this book. If anything, I wish there was more of this, because sometimes it seems a little unclear where she found certain facts. This is a worthwhile read.
Author Gwen Strauss weaves the story together by juxtaposing the background information of each individual woman with the narrative story of their life in the concentration camp and eventual escape. The result feels a little cumbersome, but I think it works well enough. Additionally, Strauss readily admits that she has had to make some inferences at the edges of what facts she was able to gather. I presume a vast majority of the dialogue presented in the narrative parts of the story are of her own invention based on the few notes and letters the women wrote after the war, recounting their story. Also, Strauss has this strange habit of repeating statements that were just given a few sentences back several times throughout the text. That being said, Strauss' contributions to the narrative seem are minimal enough to allow the feel of the story to accentuate the facts, and not the other way around. I also did appreciate the parts of the story that included details of the author's journey to ascertain interviews and documents that allowed her to write this book. If anything, I wish there was more of this, because sometimes it seems a little unclear where she found certain facts. This is a worthwhile read.