I am a sucker for character driven plots, and this one is not. It was still an interesting read, but the whole thing is based on a “what if” premise, then the characters were kind of built around that.

What kind of person would pretend to be Jewish in Paris during World War II? Someone who was going to be in big trouble for having a German boyfriend. What kind of Jewish man would join the Nazis? Someone trying to survive.

The book is based both in the Paris bookshop the protagonist runs, and in the NYC publishing industry she flees to after the war. It’s an interesting premise but the book to me just followed the premise. The characters didn’t grow; they just went on doing what they do. Which might be part of the intention: after a harrowing experience, when you rebuild your life, how much can get you get back to living?

The writing is effective. The exploration of human nature–in this impossible situation, what would you do–is compelling. It was a worthwhile read. As you can tell, it wasn’t my favorite read ever, and one hesitates to call anything about such life or death situations a pleasant diversion, but this is the closest to a beach read I have ever seen a Holocaust novel come. Is that bad? Nah. Will I read other Feldman books. Probably, if just to see whether they are all based on premise or people.