Saturday, September 03, 2016

2016 book 154

Affinity Konar's Mischling
This was one of those books that I found engrossing while I was reading, but was never in a hurry to pick back up. As the second half dragged a little, I realized I was primarily reading out of a feeling of obligation as a Jew. That's a weird way to feel while reading a novel. Anyway, it centers on a pair of twin sisters being experimented on by Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz; since I once wrote a high school term paper on said Angel of Death ( . . . why?), I didn't really find anything here surprising--just sad. The whole thing is just sad. And then the end feels a little rushed and also left me with some questions. The characters are really well done and Konar does a good job differentiating their narrative voices, and I found Stasha and her journey to be particularly compelling, but like, it IS a book about terrible Auschwitz experiments and the survivors of same. Not an easy read. B/B+.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

No comments: