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A review by kappareads
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
3.0
Rated 3.5 stars
This book was an enjoyable read. It was interesting to have a female Jewish MC and I expected to get a lot of perspective on life of Jewish immigrants in the 19th century, but it didn't really happen.
The book follows the life of Addie Baum, who is being interviewed by her granddaughter on her life, and the grandma gives an intricate retelling of her life as a Jewish girl from an immigrant family. It starts when she was about 14 and ends in the present day (the 80s) when she's 85. Overall, it was well written and it did pull me in, but the ending/climax fell flat and rushed.
Now for the spoilery bits:
There is one line that even hits at Addie and her friends being all "Oh my god we were scared holy fuck," but that's about it. Not even a mention afterwards when it is certain they would've learned about the concentration camps and horrors of WWII. There is some discussion of antisemitism; people not calling her by her name or her being introduced by a fake name so she could get into places in order to get a job, but I feel like there should've been space made for a more in-depth discussion of it after the events of WWII because even if she didn't experience severe antisemitism, everyone was witness to it in WWII and in a novel such as this, I feel it should've been mentioned.
Similarly, the author takes an odd turn in terms of historical fiction and has Addie not suffer during the Great Depression and only has her friends suffer. This is interesting as the majority of America was okay during the Great Depression, 75% of people would've had a job, but it's just interesting as the default for historical fiction to focus on the suffering at this time.
In regards to the rushed ending, the first half of Addie's life is well described and well drawn out, but once we get past WWII, it's all summary of her life and jumping from life event to life event, making reading much harder than it was before. She quickly throws in her actual career of professor and, after describing more completely how one of her sisters raised her kids, it feels rushed how Addie describes raising her own kids.
By the last chapter, we're essentially just given a list of friends and family who didn't make it to Addie's 80th birthday party, with no explanation of their impact on her later in life or how they died. It just, didn't feel right to rush through those parts, but we did.
This book was an enjoyable read. It was interesting to have a female Jewish MC and I expected to get a lot of perspective on life of Jewish immigrants in the 19th century, but it didn't really happen.
The book follows the life of Addie Baum, who is being interviewed by her granddaughter on her life, and the grandma gives an intricate retelling of her life as a Jewish girl from an immigrant family. It starts when she was about 14 and ends in the present day (the 80s) when she's 85. Overall, it was well written and it did pull me in, but the ending/climax fell flat and rushed.
Now for the spoilery bits:
Spoiler
There certainly was more mention of her Jewishness in the first half, when shes a teenager ad younger and she talks of her father being a rabbi and how celebrations and funerals work with being Jewish, but when her being Jewish has a major impact, nothing is mentioned. By that, I mean WWII.There is one line that even hits at Addie and her friends being all "Oh my god we were scared holy fuck," but that's about it. Not even a mention afterwards when it is certain they would've learned about the concentration camps and horrors of WWII. There is some discussion of antisemitism; people not calling her by her name or her being introduced by a fake name so she could get into places in order to get a job, but I feel like there should've been space made for a more in-depth discussion of it after the events of WWII because even if she didn't experience severe antisemitism, everyone was witness to it in WWII and in a novel such as this, I feel it should've been mentioned.
Similarly, the author takes an odd turn in terms of historical fiction and has Addie not suffer during the Great Depression and only has her friends suffer. This is interesting as the majority of America was okay during the Great Depression, 75% of people would've had a job, but it's just interesting as the default for historical fiction to focus on the suffering at this time.
In regards to the rushed ending, the first half of Addie's life is well described and well drawn out, but once we get past WWII, it's all summary of her life and jumping from life event to life event, making reading much harder than it was before. She quickly throws in her actual career of professor and, after describing more completely how one of her sisters raised her kids, it feels rushed how Addie describes raising her own kids.
By the last chapter, we're essentially just given a list of friends and family who didn't make it to Addie's 80th birthday party, with no explanation of their impact on her later in life or how they died. It just, didn't feel right to rush through those parts, but we did.