Book Review: The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
As I was packing for our trip to Costa Rica, I had a large stack of books. One of the challenges I always have in leaving on a trip is deciding which books to take. What if one of the stories doesn’t grab me? What if I read them all? What will be the perfect books for the trip? One of the options was the Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel.
I’m so glad I started out my trip to Costa Rica with this book selection.
If you’re a fan of The Nightingale or The Lilac Girls, or the Lost Wife, you will love this story.
I am constantly in awe of the strength, resilience and bravery during this time. It’s heart wrenching to imagine the loss that so many felt of friends, family and a sense of their life.
The Plot
The Book of Lost Names by @kristinharmel was an incredible story of Eva, a French-born Jewish woman, with a knack for art and forgery, who found herself working with the resistance in France in WWII. After her father is taken by the French police and the Nazi’s, Eva and her mother must leave Paris. But how. How can a Polish Jewish woman and her French born Jewish daughter possibly leave Paris?
Until Eva is given the opportunity that will change everything. She is shown how she can forge documents, but must do it herself. When her documents are flawless, she is given a new opportunity. To help others as herself.
Eva’s work with the resistance saves the lives of countless jewish children who are sent to Switzerland based on the forgery and false documents she learns to create. Her determination to not allow the children’s lives to be erased and coded into the Book of Lost Names was admirable and something that brought a lot of thought with it.
I started to wonder if something like this could happen again in our lifetime. Could people be erased because they seemed to be on the wrong side of the winning crowd? Could a group so powerful, yet wrong, come back into power and we would all be fooled? Would families and lifelong friends ever turn on each other because of what might happen to them or how they might look in the eyes of their peers or those who seem to hold the power?
A few of my favorite quotes:
“This isn’t the first one, Eva. The Germans rule with fear as much as they do with their weapons. If we cower every time a false notice goes around, they will have won, won’t they? They will have taken our sense of security, our sense of well-being. I won’t allow that.”
…”she didn’t believe that he was the Messiah, she certainly believed he’d been a good person whose life had been taken unjustly. It seemed murdering people who differed from the masses was a tale as old as time.”
…”but the thing is, parents make all sorts of errors, because our ability to raise our children is always colored by the lives we’ve lived before they came along.”
“but the thing is, parents make all sorts of errors, because our ability to raise our children is always colored by the lives we’ve lived before they came along.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Book #3 for my 2021 Challenge.
If you would like to purchase the book, here is the link to buy on Amazon.
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel.
You can find out more about Kristin Harmel here. I also loved her book The Winemaker’s Wife. This was my first Kristin Harmel book and I feel in love with her style, her ability to bring story and her voice.
Find more of my book reviews here.
