"Those Who Save Us"

In 2009 I got back into a long time hobby of reading again. I've even joined with a few friends and started a book club! I'm finding it so relaxing at night to wind down with a book. Prior to kids, I was mostly a mystery book reader---Grisham, Patterson, etc. But, now I'm really trying to push myself to read ALL types of books. I've found that I really enjoy reading historical fiction books. Usually these books take me much longer to read, but it's made me to want to learn more about different events/people in history (I've never been a history buff, so it's all new to me!).

While I'm not really good at writing reviews, I'm going to attempt to give a brief synopsis of each book I read this year. I'll rank each book on a 1-4 scale with 4 being the highest rating. This is a great way to keep track of the books I've read and give others some book suggestions. So here it goes, my first book of the year........

"Those Who Save Us" by Jenna Blum--*** (3 stars)
I decided to start off the year with a historical fiction book centered around WWII in Germany. This book was written in the prospective of two women growing up in Germany during WWII. It switches back and forth throughout the book from present day and early 1940's. The 1940's portion of the book travels through the war with Anne, a German girl in her late teens and early 20's. Anne endures some very VERY troublesome times trying to raise her daughter alone amist the war. She does whatever she can to ensure her daughters safety and survival. On the flip side we experience the present day, Trudy, Anne's daughter who despretely yearns to learn about her past.

While many parts of this book were difficult to read, because of the nature of the content, I found it very interesting to read about this time period from a women's prospctive---especially a German women's prospective. I can't even imagine going through any of it and surviving. A very powerful book. I would definitley recommend it to all women.