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A review by nonameless
The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson
2.0
I don't know how, but this author managed to make a book about the Holocaust boring.
If you're curious about this book, just skip over it. Read "Someone Named Eva," "Salt to the Sea," or "The Book Thief" instead. Those stories have the right level of maturity, complexity, and respect to competently discuss the horrific events of WWII in a way that is moving, haunting, and taps into visceral emotions about the inhumanity of war.
This story is hardly a story at all. I wish all the parts about the sisters (who, I'm sure in real life were incredibly smart and selfless people) were all cut out. This novel didn't do the real life Cook sisters any justice--they hardly had enough personality to count as characters. I didn't believe that these cardboard, shallow girls were doing all of these things that the author said they were doing. Mild spoiler warning, but someone in Germany asks them a genuine question about if he should escape while he still can, or risk his life helping others. It could've been a great moment for self-reflection for these two women (they could've paused to ask themselves why they kept risking their lives to help strangers), but instead, they just look at each other and then say something along the lines of:
"Um...that's a hard question. We can't answer it for you--maybe pray about it?"
Wow. Such depth. The real Cook sisters deserve better than this.
This book would've been much more interesting had it only contained the summaries about historical events, because summarizing historic events doesn't take much depth. I learned more about the Opera sisters from read the summary than from reading the entire book.
If you're curious about this book, just skip over it. Read "Someone Named Eva," "Salt to the Sea," or "The Book Thief" instead. Those stories have the right level of maturity, complexity, and respect to competently discuss the horrific events of WWII in a way that is moving, haunting, and taps into visceral emotions about the inhumanity of war.
This story is hardly a story at all. I wish all the parts about the sisters (who, I'm sure in real life were incredibly smart and selfless people) were all cut out. This novel didn't do the real life Cook sisters any justice--they hardly had enough personality to count as characters. I didn't believe that these cardboard, shallow girls were doing all of these things that the author said they were doing. Mild spoiler warning, but someone in Germany asks them a genuine question about if he should escape while he still can, or risk his life helping others. It could've been a great moment for self-reflection for these two women (they could've paused to ask themselves why they kept risking their lives to help strangers), but instead, they just look at each other and then say something along the lines of:
"Um...that's a hard question. We can't answer it for you--maybe pray about it?"
Wow. Such depth. The real Cook sisters deserve better than this.
This book would've been much more interesting had it only contained the summaries about historical events, because summarizing historic events doesn't take much depth. I learned more about the Opera sisters from read the summary than from reading the entire book.