Jacek Dehnel

I so very much wanted to enjoy this book, but it could not get going for me at all. It jumps around, seems to have very little plot, and has so many characters that it rivals a good old Tolstoy novel, although this is far less charming. I couldn’t keep people straight, couldn’t figure out the point of things and after picking it up and reading for a while, noting the page I was on and wondering how I got that far, figured out that my kids had skipped me 30 pages and I couldn’t even tell. It’s just that disjointed. At that point I decided that this is, sadly, a DNF.… (altro)

This book was based on the life of the author’s grandmother beginning in Ukraine in 1875 through to modern-day Poland. Although the book is fiction, there are plenty of historical events, including World Wars I and II and the German occupation.

Even with the family tree at the beginning of the book, I had trouble following this story and figuring out who all the characters were, who was talking, and who they were talking about.

The most moving part of the story was the beautiful relationship between grandmother and grandson, who gives up a part of his life to care for his grandmother LaLa, who is slowly declining into dementia.… (altro)