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We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel
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Customer reviews
- We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel
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- Customer reviews
Top positive review
Excellent Read!
February 2, 2018
I absolutely loved this book. I have read many stories detailing the horrors Jews faced throughout Europe before, during, and after World War II....and expected this story to be similar. It was different...I connected with it far more that other stories of the same genre. Perhaps knowing it was based on the author's family made it all the more moving. It is a book that I finished a few weeks ago, but cannot stop talking about to friends and family. It is a story that has stayed with me. I highly recommend!
266 people found this helpful
Top critical review
So close to being great, but doesn't quite make it
March 20, 2018
This book is so close to being great, but misses the fence.Bouncing around from character to character for each chapter makes for a cumbersome read. Keeping track of characters that were left several chapters ago, to be reunited with them later and having to recall via the family tree provided where they fit in is rather time consuming. It takes a few rounds to keep them straight and often times felt like the characters were being abandoned. The story is amazing in that a family survives. This is one book that if done right will make a better movie.
35 people found this helpful
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March 20, 2018
This book is so close to being great, but misses the fence.Bouncing around from character to character for each chapter makes for a cumbersome read. Keeping track of characters that were left several chapters ago, to be reunited with them later and having to recall via the family tree provided where they fit in is rather time consuming. It takes a few rounds to keep them straight and often times felt like the characters were being abandoned. The story is amazing in that a family survives. This is one book that if done right will make a better movie.
August 21, 2018
I wish I had better enjoyed reading this. It does important work in showing the varieties of experiences suffered by Holocaust survivors, and I liked the structural device of following the war chronologically, yet skipping among the stories of all the characters, and what each was doing during a certain time. However, 3 things really bothered me. First, the characters are all improbably idealized, probably because the author is writing about her own family. Yes, these characters did many brave and even heroic things, but no one ever got angry, no one ever had a bad mood, no o ne argued over doing the dishes, everyone loved one another every second. It's true that twice female characers suffered debilitating depressions, but each time she had a baby, and that fixed it. Second, all the characters long for home, family, and life before the Nazis arrived, which is probably very true, and understandable. But in the novel, this means that almost every chapter has some character yearning once again for a Passover dinner, and those reperated scenes of nostalgia got tedious. Third, I found the writing rather flat. There's nothing sparkly about the prose style. So, which the book tells an important story and kept me reading until the end (although I skipped the Passover dinner scenes after a while), I don't think it's as well done as most other commentators do. Hard to criticize a heartfelt novel about Holocaust survivors, but as a novel, it has glaring (to me) weaknesses.
December 7, 2018
Good book that would have been better, maybe great, had there been more character development. I don't mean that the characters did not grow and change; I mean I couldn't tell one character from the other. None of them really came to life for me, and it's hard to care too much about people you never really feel you know.
July 2, 2019
I've read dozens of books on this topic and this one falls short in so many ways, overall I would give it a failing grade.
All the men are too weak to fight for their cause and spend all their time day dreaming about better times. All the women are distracted by the loss of their previous life to be of any use. WHY was this a best seller?!?! So undeserving!
The book jumps from character to character and we never get to know any of them. I cannot give this book enough low marks. Who were the people she wrote about? Weaklings with NO backbone, NO real clarity about what was happening around them, NO thoughts for anyone other than themselves, NO compassion, no passion, drive, just sniveling people WHO DO NO REPRESENT THE TRUE SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST!
Wow....can't believe this was even printed.
There are countless better books on this topic and on any other topic.
All the men are too weak to fight for their cause and spend all their time day dreaming about better times. All the women are distracted by the loss of their previous life to be of any use. WHY was this a best seller?!?! So undeserving!
The book jumps from character to character and we never get to know any of them. I cannot give this book enough low marks. Who were the people she wrote about? Weaklings with NO backbone, NO real clarity about what was happening around them, NO thoughts for anyone other than themselves, NO compassion, no passion, drive, just sniveling people WHO DO NO REPRESENT THE TRUE SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST!
Wow....can't believe this was even printed.
There are countless better books on this topic and on any other topic.
February 19, 2019
I finally gave up when author spent so much time describing Addy taking a shower. Why is so much of the book spent on silly description ! I read for a good writing style as much as a story. And - why do people talk about what a good book it is and then give it one or two stars? When I saw someone had said " … Scarlet Sky " (which was an adolescent waste) was better, I knew I was wasting my
time. Life is too short to spend on bad books.
time. Life is too short to spend on bad books.
September 12, 2018
As is the case with holocaust-based themes, the characters are immersed in the horrors of both the anticipation and then manifestation of the German invasion. There can be no story about Jews in that time period that does not create an ordeal for the reader who experiences something of the horror of the context. I did not feel that there was enough uplift in the story to justify the ordeal of reading it - but I am especially disinclined toward holocaust-themed stories. I bought this because it sounded as if it was a character driven plot - but that is not what I felt when reading it. In the end I wished I had not purchased it - but not because it was such a bad book. Just because it left me feeling that sick feeling that thinking about Hitler's evil always evokes.
November 11, 2018
Focuses on one large family from the start of WW2 through it’s aftermath. Character portrayals are excellent though Polish names make the story difficult for an uninformed reader. There is considerable jumping from one protagonist to another. Romance and at times rare humor still can’t lessen the horrors inflicted on Jews and others by the Nazi’s and Soviet Russians. Historical references seem accurate. Geographic descriptions appear necessary and a clear map would be helpful. Also a glossary of names would assist the reader. There are some prolonged and repetitious parts reflecting the horrible nature of WW2. This is a poignant family memoir that seems to have been turned somewhat into a novel based on extensive research with included historical notes.
April 28, 2019
Once I saw that this was a family memoir (notes at the end of the book), the writing made more sense. Glad it wasn't only me who had trouble keeping track of who was who. Eventually I quit trying to remember if I was reading about a son or son-in-law, a daughter or daughter-in-law, sister, brother or parent, but this ruined the storylines. This was more like a book of historical facts with names thrown in. I'm sure the real family adores it - because they know who they are reading about! It was difficult to finish.
January 8, 2019
I gave the novel a three because, while it was well written, there was no distinctive story. There were bits and pieces; scraps of people's lives that weren't woven together properly to form a good story. In fairness to the author, I believe that it would take considerable experience to use this information and turn it into a good story by adding enough fiction to fill it and bring it all together. The author should definitely try again.
June 5, 2018
I wanted to like it more. I resorted to keeping track of the characters on a piece of paper; who was related to who and where they were. Clearly a story that needs to be told and re-told. A better read of Nazi's and Poland are the two Herman Wouk books - "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance".
