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A review by klcsl
The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero
3.0
I'm nervous to even give this review because the book's subject matter is usually viewed as untouchable, but I think honesty is important with any critique. Before getting to my criticism, I should mention that it's a well-written book and I understand why so many people like it.
All I knew about this book was that it was a retelling of The Nutcracker. In the first chapter or two, I thought I was going to absolutely love this book. It seemed like it was going to be a spin-off where this new doll character was going to go on an adventure in the real world and help the humans deal with trauma. I guess you could argue that's what it was about, but I disagree. The book is truly about the Holocaust. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but too often, writers will just tell basically the same story that's been told a million times before. If you're older than maybe 15, you've heard this story before.
I thought this book would at least take the story in a different way, sort of like Jojo Rabbit, but it really didn't. Telling the story through the doll's eyes seemed superfluous. The war of The Nutcracker was meant to be a metaphor for the Holocaust and the Rats were the Nazis. I get that. I just think it was silly and too on-the-nose to be deep or clever. We don't need to reverse engineer those fairytales. Intelligent readers should be able to read those stories and relate them to the real world without it being shoved in their faces.
An example would be the Harry Potter books. Most people saw the correlation between the Death Eaters/Voldemort and the Nazis/Hitler. Rowling didn't need to beat it over our heads. Dollmaker of Krakow doesn't give the readers that level of trust.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but this book just didn't do it for me.
All I knew about this book was that it was a retelling of The Nutcracker. In the first chapter or two, I thought I was going to absolutely love this book. It seemed like it was going to be a spin-off where this new doll character was going to go on an adventure in the real world and help the humans deal with trauma. I guess you could argue that's what it was about, but I disagree. The book is truly about the Holocaust. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but too often, writers will just tell basically the same story that's been told a million times before. If you're older than maybe 15, you've heard this story before.
I thought this book would at least take the story in a different way, sort of like Jojo Rabbit, but it really didn't. Telling the story through the doll's eyes seemed superfluous. The war of The Nutcracker was meant to be a metaphor for the Holocaust and the Rats were the Nazis. I get that. I just think it was silly and too on-the-nose to be deep or clever. We don't need to reverse engineer those fairytales. Intelligent readers should be able to read those stories and relate them to the real world without it being shoved in their faces.
An example would be the Harry Potter books. Most people saw the correlation between the Death Eaters/Voldemort and the Nazis/Hitler. Rowling didn't need to beat it over our heads. Dollmaker of Krakow doesn't give the readers that level of trust.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but this book just didn't do it for me.