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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Tulsa City-County Library.
Sep 06, 2017greenacres rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
We've all heard the phrase "Don't judge a book by it's cover"; this is a good example. You may think you are getting a white-washed war story of three friends and lost loves, but this is so much more. We are taken to Ravensbruck, a WWII "re-education" camp-really a concentration/experimental facility- where inmates are subjected to gruesome surgeries. We meet Kasia an inmate and a German female Doctor, Herta Oberheuser. We get both sides of the story in this novel; it's not often the reader is presented with that. Another major character is Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite, who sends care packages to orphaned French children and later assists in the rehabilitation of the Ravensbruck prisoners. There is a lot of emotional upheaval here, as there is in any war story. But the reader has some relief from the intensity of the major plot line with the introduction of the romance between Caroline and Paul Rodierre. My minor "beefs" about the book -- I felt the title and cover were misleading but I understand the selling point of good cover art. And Caroline and the Ravensbruck women's lives don't converge until page 375 of the 476 novel. I realize we need this back-story to appreciate the novel in it's entirety. All in all a suspenseful, detailed, educational read; a story that needed to be told. Lest we forget.