I really enjoy reading historical fiction and memoirs set around WWII. I don't particularly like reading about the Holocaust because it was a horrible horrible thing and I do not like reading a romanticized tale about it nor do I want to read the horrors of the camps. I've read them already and I just cannot.
I do enjoy reading about people who took charge of their situations or what they did to help during that time period.
The Girl Who Counted Numbers is a different take than what I've read previously. It is set in Israel in 1961. Susan Reich is a smart 17 year old who graduated from high school early with hopes of convincing her father gruff father that she should travel instead of going straight to college. His compromise is Israel, where she will take Hebrew classes and look for her Uncle Yakov. Susan's father left their home in Poland in 1920 and never saw his older brother again. After the war he has written to many organizations and has heard not a thing about what happened to his beloved older brother.
Susan arrives in Israel looking for a lover, a good time, and maybe to find her uncle. She has an adolescent struggle over if she even wants to look for him or if she even can. She resents that she is sent her with the Adolf Eichmann trial going on, and so much pain in the air.
She attends her Hebrew classes and makes friends with Moroccan immigrants who are unhappy with the way they are being treated. She slowly learns bits and pieces about her uncle Yakov on her journey and does aa little growing up as the story progresses as well.
The book is based on the author's own trip to Israel but the story is fictional.
I was given a copy for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Have your read any books set in Israel? What is your favorite recent historical fiction read?
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