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veryperi22's review against another edition
5.0
This short book has been easy to finish but hard to read.
The story is about Rosa, a survivor of the concentration camps. Rosa lost her baby to the Nazis, watching her being murdered. She never stops mourning her, never accepting her baby's death, never quite stepping out of her delusions.
She quotes her niece about the lives of survivors. Where normal people have nine lives, like cats, survivors have only three.
Before. During. After.
Rosa responds:
"Before is a dream. After is a joke. Only during stays. And to call it a life is a lie."
I think this nicely, painfully, sums up the book -- how Rosa cannot live anywhere else but there.
Rosa is a mother. Rosa is a woman watching the world moving on. Oblivious. Seemingly living a lie after the horror of the camps.
Rosa lost her baby.
The line between sanity and insanity is thin.
Rosa has gone mad.
k_lee_reads_it's review against another edition
4.0
A short story about the Holocaust and a novella about the aftermath. I'm wondering how this got on my TBR list because it is amazing in its pain and beauty.
booksandsundaes's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
enyaxiang's review against another edition
4.0
Two short stories, one woman. Haunting and poetic. Magic realism at its finest. A conflicting and unsatisfying ending that just hits
aldish's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.75
leonardo_munoz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated