The Book: Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian

The Story: When a woman, Alice, who has been subject to abuse her entire marriage is found dead in her home alongside her husband, a murder/suicide is the immediate assumption.  As the police begin to dig deeper, there is so much  more going on.

Most of the story focuses on Stephen Drew.  He had baptized Alice the day before… and had been sleeping with her for quite awhile before that.  Whoops.  He kind of has a faith crisis and a legal crisis on his hands.  Eek.

Somehow (I kind of forget how) this author, Heather, comes on the scene.  She has written books about angels.  She becomes friends with Stephen and with Alice’s daughter Heather.  She gets all mixed up in their lives.

Meanwhile, the police are trying to figure out what happened the night that Alice and her husband met their end. Mystery, suspense, drama.  You know how it goes.

What I Thought: Chris Bohjalian is a male version of Jodi Picoult.  He always writes these timely books about a family that somehow get themselves into some horrible situation then has to get out of it.  Generally it involves a moral dilemma and a courtroom drama.  They almost always have some kind of twist ending. I was annoyed when I realized that he was a formula writer, but I guess his formula works. I keep coming back.

I thought that the high point was the different voices.  Sometimes authors do this and it doesn’t work, but he really did have distinct, clear voices for each narrator.  It made the characters come to life and made the “suspense” part of the book work so much better.  Even though I was pretty sure I had figured it out in the first couple of chapters (I had!), I continued to second guess myself right up to the very end.

The low point was the stupid author character.  I don’t know where she came from or even what her role in the book even was.  It was awkward and clunky and didn’t work for me at all.  Her sections and even scenes that involved her had me just kind of zoning out.  Bleh.  Unnecessary for sure.

That being said, this story held its own.  I was not disappointed at all.  It kept my attention and kept me guessing.  This one won’t go down as one of my favorites but it was fun while I was reading it and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

Conclusion: Not the best (My favorite is Before You Know Kindness) or worst (probably Tran-Sister Radio) by Bohjalian, but pretty good.  I think this would be a great summer read- beach/airplane/vacation/road trip stuff for sure.

The Book: Skeletons at the Feast, by Chris Bohjalian

The Story: This is the book that I was talking about in my review of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  Like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, this is a WWII book written from the perspective of Germans.  Pretty different from most novels out there that deal with the Holocaust.

In this one,  WWII is coming to a close and the Russians are pushing back against the German line.  The Emmerich family gets their stuff in carts and throws their POW, Callum, and hides him under hay and head out.  They are headed through Poland and pushing toward the safety of the British and American lines.  With me so far?

Anna, the daughter, is secretly in love with Callum and they’ve been carrying on a relationship at their farm for months.  Early in the story, the oldest son and the father rejoin the German army to help in the final fights.  This leaves Anna, Anna’s mother, her 10 year old brother and Callum to travel these long, hard miles.  They are joined by “Manfred,” a corporal in the German army.  Actually his name is Uri and he is a Jew who jumped off of  a train headed for Auschwitz but he has spent the last few years going through disguise after disguise simply to keep him alive.

The other story that this book follows is the story of a young woman named Cecile who has been in work camps for years.  She was lucky enough to start off in some great boots and she really does attribute her survival to those boots.  The group of women that she is working with are eventually marched miles and miles through the freezing cold.  Her journey and her survival are a very important piece of the puzzle that is this novel.

The base of the novel revolves around love: familial love, love for your country, jealous love, and first loves.  That is not to say that this is a romance by any means, it really isn’t.  It is a unique look at WWII that is just steeped in this idea of what we will do for love.

What I Thought: When I first started this book, my mind was blown.  There wasn’t much background in the first 3o pages or so, so one Sunday morning, I woke Shaun up asking him questions about Russia, Prussia, Germany and the  different parts of the German army.  Bless his heart, he didn’t even bat an eye.  In fact, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even open his eyes.  With his head buried in the pillows, he answered about 30 WWII questions in his sleep.  Did I mention that I’m married to a genius?

Anyway.  I thought this book was great.  Once I got that little bit of background (which may just be common knowledge that I’ve missed somehow?), I was totally sold.  I have read other books by Chris Bohjalian and he never lets me down.  Usually his books are these “modern issue” books, so this was a big departure for him, but I think that he did a great job.

What really got me was just this totally new perspective.  I have read a lot of Holocaust books and WWII books (I told you I’m morbid!) and very rarely does a new perspective, a whole different story, creep in.  The part about Cecile, a Jewish girl going on this big hike surrounded by trigger-happy Nazis… that part I had read before.  The rest of it was a revelation to me.  Pretty awesome.

I do want to add that this one is pretty gruesome.  I know that it’s a book that takes place during a war and yadda yadda, some gore is expected…. some.  There is A LOT of gore going on here.  If you have a weak stomach or a little faint-of-heart, this may be a book you want to pass on.  Even though the cover has a couple hugging and loving on each other, that is a little bit misleading.  There is some serious stuff going on there.

This is getting long, so I’m going to wrap it up.  I loved the characters and really found myself attached.  I thought that this book was well paced and really kept me reading.  It seems like it was really well researched.  I liked it.

Conclusion: If you like a good WWII or Holocaust novel, pick this up.  If this stuff creeps you out, skip it.  That’s all.  There is a whole new perspective explored here and it is worth your time to give it a shot.