Jacob’s struggle to balance rigid principles with unyielding love is one that most Christian readers can appreciate, but the...
In Greiner’s debut novel, a Christian man must determine how to appropriately take a controversial stand concerning homosexuality.
Jacob Greene is in a tight spot. The company he works for, One World, recently issued a new policy stating their intent to specifically market products toward the homosexual community. As a Christian, Jacob objects to his company condoning a behavior he believes to be morally wrong. If he voices his objections, however, he risks losing his job, which he simply cannot afford to do. In his distress, he connects with other Christian employees at One World who share his concerns. Surprisingly, though, he fails to recognize how the unloving attitudes shared by his new “friends” stand at complete odds with his desire to convey Christ’s love—even though many readers will likely notice this fact almost immediately. The group’s words and attitudes soon extend so far past the point of standard, albeit sometimes uncomfortable, rhetoric and into the realm of blatant wickedness that one could feel tempted to suspect Greiner of occasionally flirting with hyperbole. In Jacob’s defense, though, he lacks experience in thinking through controversial issues, which could account for the limit of his sensitivity. Once he begins to seriously and spiritually seek out the right course of action, he stumbles onto it. As a direct result of an unexpected friendship, he also learns that putting a face to the controversy can make it easier to love those wrapped up in it. Although Jacob does not have any exciting “see the light” moments, he does develop as a character; in learning how to approach moral controversy, he invites Christian readers—and, perhaps, readers of all faiths—to consider their own approach. Readers steeped in secular society may not be able to relate to Jacob’s problematic journey and conclusion, however, and some of his interactions and emotions may seem contrived to those who lack a similar base of experience.
Jacob’s struggle to balance rigid principles with unyielding love is one that most Christian readers can appreciate, but the book’s presentation makes it more suitable as a trigger for introspection than entertainment.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-1468190366
Page Count: 258
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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