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Fans of The Nightingale and Lilac Girls will adore The Things We Cannot Say.” —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author This wasn’t bad and I sort of get the high rating it. It’s just bad timing to read this book because I didn’t want to read more WWII books but my hold for the audio was up and had no other audiobooks to listen to. The format of the book works really well for The Things We Cannot Say. Additionally, I am thrilled, THRILLED, that those with disabilities were represented. The tension between Alice and Wade is real. Eddie deserves to be challenged and explore life, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. However, Eddie also will never be Callie. Finding the balance between unrealistic expectations and pushing someone is very difficult, and The Things We Cannot Say reflects that. Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Librarians Group is the official group for requesting additions or updates to the catalog, including:
Alina’s quiet little town is taken over by Nazis, and the climate becomes divisive and hateful. At the same time, Tomasz completely disappears. She waits and waits to hear from Tomasz as Nazi soldiers patrol her family’s farm. Alice's grandmother, Alina, is 95 years old and near the end of her journey on earth. Alina survived WW II while living in Poland and immigrated to America. Alice has a 10 year old gifted daughter (Pascal) and a seven year old son (Eddison) on the autism spectrum.This is a story of war, of family, of loss, of sacrifice, of the goodness of people trying to save others because they saw each other as human beings, not as Jews or Catholics, and at its heart is a beautiful love story. It’s an important story as all Holocaust stories are because it’s focus is on the importance of remembering the things that happened, the importance of sharing those stories. So many novels these days are comprised of dual narratives, one in the past and one in a more modern time. They don’t always work, but that structure worked here perfectly and when the stories finally converged, even though the connection became apparent to me before that time, I cried. The moment was so emotional for the characters and Kelly Rimmer does a beautiful job of conveying it. Alina and Tomasz rekindle their relationship but their reunion is fraught with danger. Tomasz shares a plan with Alina of escaping the Nazi-occupied region and seek safety in Russian territory. He carries a film canister that contains evidence of the atrocities at the nearby Auschwitz extermination camp. In the present day, Alice is a stressed-out wife and mother of two children—a precocious daughter and a nonverbal autistic son. Although she is married, she might as well be a single mother, as her husband is not an involved parent, choosing to occupy himself with work rather than bond with the children. In the meantime, Alice’s Babcia (grandmother) has had a stroke and cannot communicate verbally, but using her grandson’s voice-assisted app, she transmits urgent messages to her granddaughter: Find Tomasz and Babcia fire Tomasz. Although she does not understand Babcia’s command or what she’s even supposed to be looking for, Alice travels to Poland to help unravel a decades-old family mystery, while simultaneously seeking healing and solace for her own broken life. Alina and Tomasz are childhood sweethearts. The night before he leaves for university in Warsaw, he proposes to her. But when her village of Trzebinia falls into Nazi hands, Alina doesn't know whether Tomasz is dead or alive.
From the bestselling author of Truths I Never Told You, Before I Let You Go , and the The Warsaw Orphan, Kelly Rimmer’s powerful WWII novel follows a woman’s urgent search for answers to a family mystery that uncovers truths about herself that she never expected. Admittedly, I haven't read a ton of books from the Polish perspective, much less from a devout Catholic protagonist; the Holocaust was definitely present within the book (Alina lived down the road from Auschwitz-Birkenau), but it wasn’t described in full. One of the key tenets of Alina’s character is that she is babied by the adults in her life, so she’s not sure what’s happening over there…or with the Resistance…or to Jews….until a man explains it to her. Yes, this is a big pet peeve of mine, can you tell? Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s newest novel, The Paris Agent, where a family’s innocent search for answers brings a long-forgotten, twenty-five-year-old mystery featuring two female SOE operatives comes to light!Another entry in the recent trend of female protagonists during WWII genre. Some of these books have been hits ( The Alice Network) and some have been misses ( The Lost Girls of Paris). It has been interesting to read them, but sometimes it feels like the genre is getting over-saturated. Because of that, I took a break for a while before trying The Things We Cannot Say, but my family kept recommending it, so I figured it was time to give it a try. This story is a little bit of everything; historical fiction, women’s fiction, domestic drama and a love story, all rolled up into one. The story alternates between Alice, in the present day and her grandmother, Alina in the late 1930’s, early 1940’s Nazi occupied Poland.
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