The Orphan's Tale: A Novel

This is the first time I've read a book written by this author Pam Jenoff. It was very interesting and. It kept your interest. The dynamics between Noa and Astrid were compelling which made me want to keep reading as much as I could each day. Now I need to find another book by Pam Jenoff to read.

heart warming and beautiful. Just the right questions left unanswered, just the right secrets revealed. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who loves to read, just for the sake of the story.

Reviewer: D. GoinPam Jenoff calls the folks at MIRA books her "dream team." Well, she'd better wake them up, because they let slip by--what? Call them style quirks-- and errors that, like leeches, suck blood from and bog dowm one of the best stoties I have read in yeatrs.Ms. Jenoff is clearly a great story teller, who has researched her work well and drawn her characters finely. One cam see, hear, smell, feel and even taste her scenes.Yet, I can agree with some of the one-star reviewers who call the tale boring. To me, "boring" is a bit harsh. Yet, one does become weary spending so much time in Noa and Astrid's heads, listening to backstory repeated endlessly and hearing for the umpteenth time how guilty Noa feels about lying about her past. We get it, okay?I mentioned style qrirks. Both Noa and Astrid appear to be all-knowing, forever in terpreting what other characters say. For ecample, Noa is the poin-of-view character observing Peter and Astrid. Peter says somerhing to. Astrid and Noa notes, "But she (Astrid) turns away from him, her pride too hurt to let him close." How in the world can Noa know why Astrid turns away. Noa might say, "But she turned away, as if her pride..." This psychoanaalysis by POV characters goes on throughout the book, imparting the wiadom of the author rather than of the characters.Another style quirk thar makes no sense to me is the interruption of dialogue to get back i nto the POV character's head. For example, in a scene where Astrid is the POV character and where Noa suggests she and Astrid help the workers putting up the tent, Astrid shakes her head and says, "No, let them do their work." Then we go into Astrid's head, when she thinks the following: We can no more help raise the tent than the workers can swing from the trapeze. Why not make this last sentence partof her response to Noa, which would, as dialogue always does, allow deepening characters and the conflict between them?Above, l also mentioned errors. I will point out two of the most prevalent:First, showing and telling at the same time. Showing is always better, but certainly not both. For example, in a scene where the police are arresting an old man and his granddaughter, the old man stalls for time "The policeman will hear none of it." (telling) "'Now," says the policeman. (showing). Telling is heavy-handed throughout the story.The second and more egregious error involves getting the past tense of verbs mixed up with the past perfect (pluperfect) tense. This happens frequently. For example, Astrid thinks, "I see his face more vividly than I had in months." This should read "...than I have in months." To use "had," she would need to establish a past event, before which something happened. She could think, for example, "I saw his face clearly, yesterday. I had not thought of him for months before that."Enough! This is a damn fine story I recommend it and plan to read more of Pam Jenoff's work. But please, dream team, wake up!

This is a book I would read again and again. Historical fiction that completely fascinated me. What a beautifully woven tale- but I could gush for pages.I remember when I was a kid and we learned about the Holocaust. I remember as a kid actually wondering if someone might have escaped Germany – as a Nazi – and moved to Thailand – because I met people who may have fit the description, as I was living in Thailand. I had learned enough in school and read enough on my own, even as an elementary-aged child, to have these thoughts. Yes, my imagination was always wild. The horseback riding instructors at the popular camp for young pre-teens in Thailand probably weren’t escaped Nazis. Even though they used to scrape our uneaten, chewed up bits of fried eggs off of our plates and eat them each morning. And shout in seemingly angry German (is there any other way?) at us as we tried to maneuver riding a horse.In the end, I was too sensitive for horseback riding camp.But, then as a high school graduate – yes, still a kid technically, at 17 years old – I made the trip to visit a concentration camp-turned-memorial in Austria. What a trip that was. To see the buildings, preserved as they were, kept intact to TEACH people what happened. Gas chambers, dissection tables, even blood stains still on the floor. Even at that age, as naive as I was on many levels, I knew the importance and that this must never happen again. And that I would fight injustice for the rest of my life.Bravo to Ms. Jenoff. Thank you for your writing. I cannot wait to read more of your work.

Hasta el momento uno de los mejores libros de pam... solo he leído 2 (ignoremos eso) la historia atrapante y muy interesante

Just finished this book for the second time. I did enjoy it but to be honest it’s not really my genre of book. I seriously don’t remember the ending so I think I may have given up before the end last time?It was enjoyable but I won’t be reading it a third time.

I read somewhere that this book was a cross between Water for Elephants and The Nightingale, both of which I have read and loved. Now Pam Jenoff has pulled off a slick trick and combined those two ideas into an intriguing and heart felt story which will resonate with me for some time to come. A Jewish woman, Astrid, married a German officer shortly before the war. He is pressured by the Nazis to divorce her as marriage to a Jew is forbidden. Astrid is the daughter of the owner of one of the well known circuses in Europe. But the Nazis have banned Jews from owning or performing in the show. In another story line, a Dutch woman, Noa, gave birth to a baby she had conceived with a German soldier, but she gives up the child to be raised by the Nazi party in one of their schools. She is devastated to lose the child when she changes her mind. She comes upon a railroad car loaded with Jewish infants who have been dumped one on top of the other, like a load of garbage and are dead or dying. In her grief over the loss of her own baby and her horror with the scene, she steals one of the infants to raise, and makes up a story that the male baby is her brother, Theo. Then she runs away into the woods to hide.Noa and Theo are saved by a circus worker and brought to the winter training facility where she meets Astrid who is hiding in plain sight from the Nazis. Astrid is an aerialist and she is asked by the circus owner to train Noa the tricks of the flying trapeze so that he can hide her out as well. That is just a small taste of the intrigue and action to come. I very much enjoyed this book for the unique storyline, action, romance and more. If you enjoy books set in Europe during the second war, you will like this one very much.

Courage

Not one of the best WW2 books I have read. It is passable.