A review by readingwithhippos
The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor
4.0
I love it when books live up to the high expectations I place on them. My library doesn't have a copy of The Hours Count, and I'd never read Jillian Cantor before, but I decided to ask for it for Christmas even though it was kind of an unknown quantity. It just sounded so good! A fictionalized story about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, told from the perspective of their neighbor lady? I ask you, how could I pass that up?
It was everything I hoped it would be and more. It's been a while since I was able to sit down with a book and just cruise. A lot of my reading in 2015, for whatever reason, felt very effortful. So it was a relief to immerse myself in Millie Stein's life in Knickerbocker Village, which is terribly mundane and housewiferly—until suddenly, it isn't.
The first-person narration is a great choice, even though it drastically limits the flow of information. Millie isn't stupid, but there's so much going on that she doesn't understand. You're wondering who is who, who's on which side, who's guilty of what, and who might be falsely accused. And because Millie is a wife and mother and her days center around caring for her son, there's a really interesting element of family and domestic drama. Highly recommended, especially for fans of historical fiction.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
It was everything I hoped it would be and more. It's been a while since I was able to sit down with a book and just cruise. A lot of my reading in 2015, for whatever reason, felt very effortful. So it was a relief to immerse myself in Millie Stein's life in Knickerbocker Village, which is terribly mundane and housewiferly—until suddenly, it isn't.
The first-person narration is a great choice, even though it drastically limits the flow of information. Millie isn't stupid, but there's so much going on that she doesn't understand. You're wondering who is who, who's on which side, who's guilty of what, and who might be falsely accused. And because Millie is a wife and mother and her days center around caring for her son, there's a really interesting element of family and domestic drama. Highly recommended, especially for fans of historical fiction.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com