The Things We Cannot Say

I will not be summarizing the storyline, instead I will be reviewing my likes and dislikes.
The chapters alternate between Alice (present-day) and Alina (past, during Holocaust). The year that the chapter occurs is not included, and the story itself does not rely on years/dates…so much of the time-frame is left to your own assumption.
This style that alternates between the present and past has been away over-done, and this novel proves no different. Because of that, most of the story is predictable; you already know that the present day character is searching into the past during WWII and finds the missing pieces to their past and how they are connected to each other. There is nothing to the style or plot build-up that sets it apart from other comtemporary historical fiction.

The main character Alina (living in past during WWII) is two-dimensional. Her character is very romanticized, so her chapters can be unconvincing.
I did like the other main character Alice (present day). She is easy to relate to, and very much authentic.

Overall, the story is easy to predict- 3 stars

This book will stay on my mind for a long time . I have read many books about the war and the effect of it on the families that lived though it, and I must say this book seemed so real at a
point I looked on line to make sure I was reading a fictional book.
I will be recommending this to anyone I can as a must read . The only negative I can say is it was a bit uncomfortable reading the last part of the book while getting my hair dyed, with tears freely flowing down my face.

Oh my, I could not put the book down. I downloaded it at 7 PM last night and with a few hours sleep, I finished by 11 AM today. Maybe that says it all. I experienced every emotion, remembered my own journey three years ago to Auschwitz And Warsaw and Krakw. My respect for the people of Poland is boundless. And there are reminders that certainly make me Concerned for our own moment in history. PS I have no family connection to Eastern Europe or Germany.

The Things We Cannot Say was so beautifully written about a time in history that was anything but beautiful. I dont want to give away much about this book. Its a must read. What I will say is, this book tells of the most beautiful, enduring love story (Alina & Tomasz) of all time. I will never forget these people.

The books jacket copy describes a plot framed by significant historical events, times and locations that have inspired thousands of well-written books. Unfortunately, this book is not one of them. I stopped reading before the midpoint, only browsing the remaining chapters.
From the beginning, I felt I was reading a book written for adolescentsmore precisely, 12- or 13-year-old girls. Even at that level, the book is amateurish. As a tale of young romance, it seems clichd and overwrought. Worse, it suffers from poor writing.

The books most damning flaws, however, lie in its factual errors and historical inauthenticity. Lets start with the most glaring (and therefore most inexcusable) errors: characters names and nicknames. Alina and Tomasz are, indeed, authentically Polish. However, Felipe, Stani and Aleksy are not. Neither is the unpronounceably spelled surname of a character described as a Polish-American reporter from the U.S: Adamcwiz. (And where did babisu come from? To my knowledge, no such word exists in any language.)

Next, much of the dialogue is amateurishly rendered (even as a translation from Polish). Maybe a13-year-old reader would find the fluttering-heart conversations between lovers Alina and Tomasz moving, but I found them tedious and saccharine. Theres more. For example, no idiomatically faithful translation would have Polish peasants repeatedly saying Okay. Nor would farmers in 1940s Poland (or elsewhere) discuss food rations in terms of calories.

The plot itself is, at several pivotal points, highly implausible. For instance, its extremely unlikely (for reasons too complicated to explain here) that the aforementioned, implausibly named, American reporter would be reporting on the Nazi occupation of Poland from inside occupied Poland.

That brings me to the most puzzling (and most irritating) factual failure: the authors conspicuous use of Nazi (noun and adjective) when she should have used German. Throughout the book (for reasons I cant fathom, unless as a misguided but foolish attempt at political correctness) she refers to the invaders as Nazis, soldiers and, indeed, invaders. Never as Germans. But no Pole (and few non-Poles) called the invaders and occupiers anything but Germans (Niemcy). And no Polish farmer, explaining the not-so-distant explosions, would tell his child, The Nazis are dropping bombs from planes. He would likely say, Niemcy zrzucaj bomby.The Germans are dropping bombs. (Planes would have been superfluous.) With rare exceptions, even the Germans referred to themselves simply (and correctly) as Germans. (In fact, few German soldiers were members of the Nazi Party.)

For those reasons (and others), I give this book one star.

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