REVIEW: The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer @tlcbooktours @graydonhouse @harlequinbooks
The Things We Cannot Say
by Kelly Rimmer
Thanks to TLC Book Tours and Graydon House for this gorgeous copy and amazing read.
Publisher: Graydon House
Publish Date: March 19, 2019
Paperback
432 Pages
Standalone
Genre: Historical Fiction
In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.
Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.
My Review:
"Breathe in. Oh! I found some air!
Breathe out. That will be the last of me. Now I will suffocate.
Breathe in. Oh! There is a little more air after all."
Oh this book. This one pulls at your tear ducts and heart strings HARD.
Present day, we see Alice dealing with her autistic child, her genius child and her extremely busy husband. Caught in a web of her own making but refusing to get help, she is now at the death bed of her Babscia and must do what her grandmother needs as her final wish... but it's going to be SO hard to leave her family.
Past, we see Alina, living in Poland as it's being occupied by the Nazis and we get an emotional and terrifying view of the world she lived in and how she had to deal with this horrifying new world when all she wants to do is marry Tomasz and live her life.
I love that with each part, the writing style changed so you felt like this was the past, and this was the present - sometimes this doesn't translate well but Rimmer does this fluidly. I was IN IT. Not only for the main story line of the war and the harrowing world we get to see through Alina's eyes... but for the every day particulars of Alice. Watching each of them grow so strongly throughout the book - phew. I'm spent. All my feelings are just laid out and still soaked in these pages.
If you like historical fiction, or even if you don't, I highly recommend picking this book up. HIGHLY.
★★★★★
Breathe out. That will be the last of me. Now I will suffocate.
Breathe in. Oh! There is a little more air after all."
Oh this book. This one pulls at your tear ducts and heart strings HARD.
Present day, we see Alice dealing with her autistic child, her genius child and her extremely busy husband. Caught in a web of her own making but refusing to get help, she is now at the death bed of her Babscia and must do what her grandmother needs as her final wish... but it's going to be SO hard to leave her family.
Past, we see Alina, living in Poland as it's being occupied by the Nazis and we get an emotional and terrifying view of the world she lived in and how she had to deal with this horrifying new world when all she wants to do is marry Tomasz and live her life.
I love that with each part, the writing style changed so you felt like this was the past, and this was the present - sometimes this doesn't translate well but Rimmer does this fluidly. I was IN IT. Not only for the main story line of the war and the harrowing world we get to see through Alina's eyes... but for the every day particulars of Alice. Watching each of them grow so strongly throughout the book - phew. I'm spent. All my feelings are just laid out and still soaked in these pages.
If you like historical fiction, or even if you don't, I highly recommend picking this book up. HIGHLY.
★★★★★
I mean, who doesn't like a book that gives you a gut punch? Thanks for being on this tour!
ReplyDeleteSara @ TLC Book Tours