emmacb's reviews
176 reviews

Quicl read, sweet ending. Gets close to a social/human nature commentary, maybe. It might just be a nice, slightly kooky story - it allows you to draw your own conclusions on that, which is part of the fun really.

I feel like this book would be more interesting to someone with more background knowledge of swimming. Personally though, I found it a bit of a slog to get through!

Some of the stories in this anthology are part of the polish History syllabus. They are beautifully written stories with a very heavy emotional bite. A couple of times I had to stop and compose myself before reading on. I read this just after a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, so could picture the locations in my head which made it all the more horribly real.

Really good read, and an excellent argument for reading the book before you watch a film as I saw the film years ago, so knew what was coming. Feels like I missed out on the surprise and emotion of that revelation!
Despite knowing the ending, this book kept me interested. I read it in one sitting on a flight. I feel like there is a lot more going on behind the scenes of this book and would love to read more analysis on it to understand better.

It seems hard to believe this is a true story. I loved the ending of the story, but am incredibly glad that there was further information afterwards about how Lale and Gita's lives went on after the narrative ended. Teared up multiple times.
There are horrible things described in this book, but what I will most take away from it is how it makes you believe in love, even in dark and awful places.

Really nice, uplifting read despite a sad beginning. Could have done without the more supernatural elements, I loved it already as a quirky 'real life' story - still a good book overall though!

I enjoyed this book, though it was quite bittersweet.
I can't help but feel that it reads a bit like the fantasy of nerdy girl in secondary school about having the cool guy fall in love with her (might just be me projecting XD), though even then I like how it explores beyond that into how it then extends into their lives after school. The book was well written and I read it very quickly!

That being said, I would have liked to know a little more about Marianne. I felt like I got to know Connell quite well, but Marianne didn't get as much exploration of her character beyond that she was 'different from everyone else' or 'weird.' At times she felt a little 2-dimensional. With that in mind, I also found the ending a little disappointing, as it felt like she was just consigned to being this slightly flat, damaged character forever while Connell got to move on. I suspect that may be the point, but I still didn't like it much!