Galerie by Steven Greenberg
ARC, e-book, 246 pages
Evolved Publishing LLC
October 24, 2015
★★★★☆
ARC, e-book, 246 pages
Evolved Publishing LLC
October 24, 2015
★★★★☆
Source: Received for review as part of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour
Every family has secrets, but some are far darker, reach deeper, and touch a rawer nerve than others.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Vanesa Neuman’s childhood in the cramped intimacy of south Tel Aviv is shadowed by her parents’ unspoken wartime experiences. The past for her was a closed book... until her father passes away and that book falls literally open. Vanesa must now unravel the mystery of the diary she has received—and the strange symbol within—at all costs.
From Jerusalem, to the backstreets of Prague, and into the former “paradise ghetto” of Theresienstadt, Vanesa’s journey of understanding will reveal a seventy-year-old secret darker than she could have ever imagined.After reading the final pages of Galerie by Steven Greenberg I felt like I had not stopped to take a breath for the last 30 pages at least! And the majority of the book was that way as well. Greenberg keeps the reader on their toes, never knowing which way the plot is going to turn next. Despite a page count that is less than 250 pages, you never once get the feeling that it is that short as the story is so full of twists and shockers. The plot of this novel definitely had a feel similar to The Da Vinci Code, where one discovery just spirals into the next and sucks the reader along in the intrigue. This is not only a story of events that transpired during World War II, but also the lingering effects on those who survived the Holocaust and the next generation. This was a new angle to the WWII story for me.
I didn’t necessarily love the format of the story – I struggled with it initially, but after the first half of the novel I started to get used to it. I struggled with 2 things: that the narrator did not really experience any of the events himself, it is mostly all second hand knowledge so I found him to be an unreliable narrator. There is even a scene where he imagines what might have happened and then tells the reader that he has no knowledge that this happened at all. The second thing was that the storytelling jumps all over the place in the timeline. You will go from the 1990s back to the 1940s and then the next chapter is the 1980s and there are different family members whose stories are being told. It all comes together and ultimately works, but I had a hard time keeping the storylines straight throughout.
Despite the stylistic quirks that troubled me early on, the story being told rocked!
Reviews of this book by other bloggers:
Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia
Also by Steven Greenberg:
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| Enfold Me |
Find Steven Greenberg: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Giveaway!!
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