Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Review: Saving Amelie by Cathy Gohlke



Saving Amelie

Saving Amelie takes place during World War 2.  Sometimes it is hard to read about circumstances that took place in a very evil time by very evil people.  This is my third WW2 book this year that I have read, and it deals with even a different angle of the war, which is eugenics.  Hitler wanted a pure Aryan bloodline of men and women with nothing wrong with them to produce a ‘perfect’ race.  This is a story about Rachel Kramer who grew up with many privileges raised by a eugenics scientist in America.  She and her father made the trek to Germany’s institute once a year for her ‘annual checkup’.  Thinking her father just trusted German doctors more, she is unprepared by the accusations that American reporter Jason Young is making against her father.  Receiving troubling news from a childhood friend about her friend’s deaf daughter, Rachel begins to open her eyes and ears and look at what is really happening in Germany in a whole different light.  What she discovers rocks her core belief system and her world.   Now on the run, Rachel must learn to open her heart and soul to a different way of life than what she was raised to expect.

There is a lot going on in this story and many characters that we meet and care about along the way.  This is my first book I have read by Cathy Gohlke and I can say that she is an excellent story teller, pulling us in to her characters’ lives and feeling the danger that they are constantly in.  Even though this is fiction, these horrors did happen and also reminds us that we must not be silent and let our freedoms go.  I also appreciate the research that she put into this story, even meeting some real life historical figures.  I received this book from The Book Club Network Inc., (TBCN), and the opinions are my own.

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