Book-a-book of the Month Club discussion

Discuss the story here

I love how Art first describes his dad as kind of a pain and then later shows us exactly why he is the way he is.

We're leaving for a week's vacation and I am taking both volumes of this for a reread. It's certainly worth a few rereads!

I just finished the first half. Art definitely finishes it very frustrated with his Dad!

Matthew wrote: "I just finished the first half. Art definitely finishes it very frustrated with his Dad!"

This isn't funny, but I work in a synagogue. We have a group called New Life Club. They are Holocaust survivors or their children. They meet once a month for lunch and entertainment of some sort at the synagogue. The lunches are always catered and even still, all these decades later, they always fill their pockets and pocketbooks with any food left. They simply cannot leave any food behind! It's sad, but a fact.

Until I read this, I didn't think I would ever find a story about WWII and the Holocaust that didn't fit the same story mold. It feels like most tales of WWII talk of happiness before the war, sorrow during the war, and redemption at the end of and after the war. But, this story felt so real. And, it was not as "clean" as just happiness/sorrow/redemption. You don't always just have people going about their daily lives, suddenly oppressed, and then fully liberated after the war is over. This book was so much more and it was extremely intriguing and raw.