REVIEW: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
Audiobook Narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Kathleen Gati. and Kathrin Kana
My rating: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.

The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten. (Via Goodreads)

Review

An excellent historically based novel that seems to really know and appreciate it's subjects, Lilac Girls is certainly fascinating it was also quite tedious in many places. Although my overall impression of the book is positive and I did indeed listen to it a second time I can't quite seem to pin-point why. While thinking over the book for this review my seemed to fixate on more things I found distracting or frustrating than things that I appreciated or found enlightening.

The book follows three perspective characters: New-York socialite named Caroline Ferriday, Polish resistance member Kasia Kuzmerick and the SS doctor Herta Oberheuser. The three characters did not work together very well for me as a listener. There always seemed to be a struggle for focus between Kasia's narration and Caroline's. Kasia's story so clearly seemed to be the heart and point of the narration but Kelly appeared to fixated on Caroline as a character that she inserted her and her narration where she didn’t really belong. Between the dueling narrations of Caroline and Kasia were these Herta chapters, although the idea of them was very interesting they were very dull and lifeless. It almost seemed as if Kelly felt obligated to include this perspective but felt no inspiration in the character.

In her afterward Kelly seems to confirm the feeling I had throughout the book. In it Kelly confirms that she was initially inspired by Caroline, that Caroline was always the one she intended to focus on and this story did not come in to focus until a little later in her research of Caroline. I could really feel this and do think it distracted from the story this book proclaims it is telling. Overall it is not a bad book or a bad listen and I don’t intend on returning it, however it is an unfocused book that seems to fight itself each step of the way.

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