Book Review | The Woman With the Blue Star

 

1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Scorned by her friends and longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding.

Ella begins to aid Sadie and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds. Inspired by harrowing true stories, The Woman with the Blue Star is an emotional testament to the power of friendship and the extraordinary strength of the human will to survive.

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I recently read this book and it literally tore me to pieces. I have not had a book impact me emotionally like that in quite some time, if ever. I'll admit, I do cry pretty easily over books but with this book I was out right sobbing and it still has me in a book hangover that I can't seem to get out of.

It was so heartfelt. All of the pain that the characters went through was so real to me. I felt like I was right there with them, standing beside them trying to cheer them on and telling them to keep going despite the hardships they were facing. It was written in such a beautiful way that I truly felt like I was standing right there. Everything they experienced, I experienced too.

Simply put, it was amazing. I think everyone needs to read it, it was just that great of a book. I can not rant and rave over it enough to express just how great it was. The unlikely friendship that formed between these two girls was breath taking to say the least.

I should probably stop now before I give away spoilers or start crying again so let me leave now with just two more words. Read it.

Blessings,

Shay