“Life doesn't work that way, Alina. Hatred spreads - it doesn't burn out with time. Someone needs to stand up and stop it.”
If it’s true that a Sunday well spent brings a week of content, it’s gonna be an awesome week! It’s 4:30 p.m. and I’m still in my pj’s. Life is better in pajamas, isn’t it? Last week was long—way too many post-midnight hours trying to get caught up. I honestly intended to grab some minutes to tell you about Kelly Rimmer’s The Things We Cannot Say.
Let me go a little Amazon on you and share a positive and a critical review of Rimmer’s latest. I’ll start with the sunny one: “Oh my, I could not put the book down. I downloaded it at 7 PM last night and with a few hours sleep, I finished by 11 AM today. Maybe that says it all. I experienced every emotion.” Now for the negative: “This style that alternates between the present and past has been way overdone…because of that, most of the story is predictable; you already know that the present day character is searching into the past during WWII and finds the missing pieces to their past and how they are connected to each other.”
Here are my two shiny cents: While it is true that dual timeline narratives feel a bit overdone at this point, The Things We Cannot Say boasts two storytellers who are endearing. Kelly connected the two timelines in a way that is often not seen—she fused the contemporary to the historical when an older Alina’s granddaughter, Alice, traveled to Poland. I’m especially fond of Alina, a spirited teenager who underestimates the Nazi occupation. She is stoic and brave. And her love for Tomasz is unshakable. Will her fierce determination and bright hope enable her to live her dream or will the Nazis ultimately force her to live a lifetime of quiet lies? You may lose some sleep to find out. But at least you’ll be in your pj’s, right?