From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1)

Heather Morris

Start date: May 1, 2020

Finish date: May 31, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Monthly Reads

Why we're reading this: 2020 group read for May: an author with flora or fauna in their name (in this case: Heather)
[close] 2020 group read for May: an author with flora or fauna in their name (in this case: Heather)

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2020 Monthly Reads

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What Members Thought

Mar 04, 2019 Karlita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bios-memoirs-or-something-like-it

It’s tough to rate a book about a person’s true life experience. My rating really depends on what I’m reviewing. For the story being told I give it a solid 5 stars. The true telling of a love story amid a backdrop of Holocaust and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp horrors is gripping, emotional, heartbreaking, and hopeful. This amazing story shows strength, survival, and the endurance of love. It’s impossible to try to relate to, explain, or review the experience of a Holocaust survivor so I It’s tough to rate a book about a person’s true life experience. My rating really depends on what I’m reviewing. For the story being told I give it a solid 5 stars. The true telling of a love story amid a backdrop of Holocaust and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp horrors is gripping, emotional, heartbreaking, and hopeful. This amazing story shows strength, survival, and the endurance of love. It’s impossible to try to relate to, explain, or review the experience of a Holocaust survivor so I won't try. I think Lale and Gita’s love story is an interesting one that should be read and shared. However, the story felt incomplete, like a lot of details were left on the cutting room floor leaving me with a disconnected, unsatisfied feeling after each brief snippet of story. Which brings me to…

The weakness in the book is the writing itself – it did not do the story justice.

For the writing part of the review, I’d give it 2 stars. Heather Morris must be a great writer of screenplays because this book reads just so. It just needs work turning it into a good novel. The story reads like a collection of post-it notes – like brief, staccato snippets of their love story and time at the camp. Perhaps it was too painful to retell their time at the camp but even the sweet moments of their love story were curtly written. Real time and flashbacks commingle without a well-defined separation which creates brief confusion and loses the flow. The characters, although being real people, were not given enough depth. I couldn’t picture the characters or scene, nor could I grasp the depth of their feelings. The setting wasn't given the dimension and horrific description that we have all seen on screen or read in books. The writing gave the story an overall flat tone and took away some emotion.

Even with the weak writing style, Morris still has a great story on her hands. It still kept me turning pages quickly, I was still invested in Gita and Lale and kept hoping they'd get their happy ending. With the right prose, this book would be great. I still recommend giving it a read. For that I give it 4 stars.
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