Book Review: Three Sisters by Heater Morris

Three Sisters by Heather Morris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Review is also available on my site: https://roxannacross.com/2025/08/24/b...

Three Sisters, the last in the Tattooist of Auschwitz series, was published on October 5, 2021, and is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, or audiobook formats, as well as at your local library through the Libby App. The audiobook is narrated by Finty Williams, who mimics Morris’ clinical writing style in her narration, keeping it as cold and detached as possible, which once again leaves listeners disconnected from the characters. For a wartime novel based on actual events, this should have been a heart-gripping read. However, Morris’s approach is flat, superficial, and fails to convey the emotional depth required for such a powerful and complex story because she glosses over the horrifying facts, leaving readers and listeners feeling underwhelmed. Furthermore, the way she portrays the sisters as childish, petulant, and sappy, as well as keeping their dialogue immature, doesn’t fit with the traumatic storyline or the grit and heaviness of the atrocities happening. The lack of emotional pull doesn’t make the story resonate with the readers and listeners.

Slovakian sisters Cibi, Magda, and Livi make a promise to their father to always stay together and look after one another. In March 1942, the Nazis come for Magda; however, she’s safe in the hospital. Instead of taking Magda, they insist that Livi must report to the station and work for them. Cibi will not let her go alone. They are the first to be transported by force to Auschwitz-Birkenau, even before the camp is complete, and they receive a four-digit number, which at times keeps them out of the selections, even the gas chambers. The sisters spend two years in the camp, enduring famine, threats, and watching their fellow compatriots get killed for no other reason than being Jewish. Cibi loses her faith and stops praying. Each has moments of despair and guilt. In October 1944, Magda and the rest of her family are captured and end up with her sisters in the camp. Cibi and Livi watch as the SS officers lead her mother and grandfather to the gas chamber. Somehow, the sisters survive another year in hell and manage to escape from the 1945 ‘death march’ and return to their home, only to find it occupied by another family.

They rebuild their lives in a community with other survivors where they reconnect with their uncle. Cibi is the first of her sisters to marry. Livi’s nightmares urge her towards new horizons; she announces to her sister that she will join the movement of young adults going to the new Jewish homeland, Israel. To not break their promise to their father, Magda goes with Livi, and not long after, Cibi, her husband, and their infant join them. As each sister finds a significant other, the theme of survivor’s guilt comes up: feeling guilty if they survived the concentration camps, feeling guilty if they didn’t suffer as much as the other survivor, feeling guilty for witnessing or doing things they didn’t stop, like an all-consuming guilt they carry with them. Morris brings this theme to light, like all others, in a detached, journal-like way. Without the emotional pull, the audience can’t connect with the characters, and this story deserves that connection.

The lack of emotion, the glossing over of horrifying facts, and the way Morris portrays the main characters as immature girls instead of strong, resilient, courageous women is atrocious, which is why this is a 2-star read or listen.



View all my reviews