Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Woman with the Blue Star: A Novel

Top positive review

Friendship, resilience, & what happens when someone steps forward to do the right thing

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2021

Sadie Gault is an 18-year-old girl living in the Krakow ghetto with her parents, including her pregnant mother, when the Nazi liquidation of the ghetto begins, she and her parents disappear into the Krakow sewers for protection.

Ella Stepanek is a well-to-do Polish girl doing anything she can to spend time away from her stepmother. In search of cherries for a pie, Ella finds herself in a small city alley. She happens to look down at a sewer grate and sees Sadie staring back at her. The two become friends when Ella helps sneak food to Sadie and the others hiding in the sewer.

Due to Ella's stepmother collaborating with Nazi soldiers, Sadie's secret is discovered and they must find their way out of the sewer. When they escape the sewer, everyone's lives are changed.

This was a wonderfully researched story based on Polish Jews who escaped to the sewers in order to evade capture by the Nazis. Pam Jenoff always respectfully represents history while telling a story designed to grab the reader's attention. This is a beautifully told story of friendship and resilience and what happens when one person steps forward and does the right thing.

21 people found this helpful

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SushII

Physical impossibilities? (spoiler alert)

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2021

Though the story itself made for a good, fast read, I was struck by some unlikely scenarios. First, how come the sewer dwellers didn’t suffer from myriad health problems caused by poor nutrition, unsanitary conditions, and hypothermia? Second, at the end, how could a drowning woman (Ella) with a head injury have the mental and physical ability to realize what Sadie needed to survive, dig into her soggy pockets(?) to retrieve them, and give them to Sadie with her dying breath? And, because surely the id card wasn’t laminated, how come it survived in usable condition? The author coyly ceases identifying Ella and Sadie’s voices, so that readers are led to believe that Sadie has died. Cheap trick!

59 people found this helpful

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From the United States

SushII

Physical impossibilities? (spoiler alert)

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2021

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59 people found this helpful

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Flawed but worth the read

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021

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I have loved all of Pam Jenoff’s novels. I eagerly awaited this next book.

But something didn’t quite come together in this one.

At times the story seemed contrived and the dialogue off.

For example one of the young characters talks like a Millennium and the book takes place in 1944. He was going to “reach out to his contacts.” Kind of sounds like a business meeting in 2021, doesn’t it? Some of the characters say, “of course” quite a bit, another popular phrase amongst today’s younger generation.

The writing itself is at times quite simplistic. Sentences are short and they just don’t always flow together.

Sometimes the story seemed contrived. For example, there is talk of storing weapons and it has to be in one particular spot because there’s nowhere else in all of Krakow that will work. Not one other place. Really?

I liked the female characters, but aside from one strong male character that we don’t see often, the other male characters are somewhat fragile or prone to small tantrum‘s when they don’t get their way. I was really hoping for a strong male character that was likable and competent. But the women definitely were.

I think the book is worth reading. It is just a bit flawed.

I love that the author writes about World War 2 and I hope her next book takes place then, too.

45 people found this helpful

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JSR

Engaging but Unlikely

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2021

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After reading Lisa Scottoline's wonderfully researched and written book ""Eternal," I picked up "The Woman with the Blue Star." by Pam Jenoff. "Eternal" is also about the horrendous persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazis and Fascists (Italy) during WWII. The story takes place in Rome. I couldn't help but compare Jenoff's writing to the book I'd just finished. It simply didn't match up. Yet the story was engaging and I pushed on, Pam Jenoff's story has potential as the horrors of WWII are real. Jews did hide in sewers in more cities than Krakow where this story takes place. One bumps into cliche after cliche; "put one foot in front of the other, " is just one example: another reviewer named a few others. And as another reviewer also remarked, the language was more young adults 21st century rather than 1943, 1944, I was continually struck by the inconsistencies in the writing and surprised that Jenoff, who has an impressive biography wasn't doing a better job telling her story. I am interested to see that others feel as I do. I will admit though that the whole time I was reading "The Woman with the Blue Star" I was thinking "this book is badly written but I want to know what happens..." There is something redeeming in the telling, as I did finish it. However, I was angry when i finished the book - better said by another reviewer: "The author coyly ceases identifying Ella and Sadie’s voices, so that readers are led to believe that Sadie has died. Cheap trick!" I agree. It was the ending of the book that made we want to write this review. Otherwise i would have said to myself "ok, so you read the book and now you'll go on to another..." But I feel manipulated by how Jenoff brought us to the ending of her story. It simply didn't connect. It left me wondering if there was something I'd completely missed. I, too, felt cheated.

38 people found this helpful

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Beachmama7

Ridiculous & impossible story

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2021

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This book started out with such a suspenseful and promising bang. Because I was intrigued, I purchased this overpriced Kindle copy. Then, I grew incredulous at the inconsistency and improbability of the situation. Were the readers supposed to believe that this young woman, hiding from the Nazis with others in the sewers, met daily with the Polish woman who saw her under a grate? And no passerby or police noticed these meetings? Seriously? It became even more ridiculous after that. The writer used phrases/words like “at the end of the day” and “pivoted”while those are from today’s parlance. She clearly has little understanding of the perils Jews faced during WWII.

32 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Can’t Believe I Finished This

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2021

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This book is poorly written and completely overwrought. So much of it, especially the relationship between the two women, is implausible and unbelievable. So much just doesn’t make sense. The Holocaust has its own melodrama; it doesn’t need this phony crap.

22 people found this helpful

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Friendship, resilience, & what happens when someone steps forward to do the right thing

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2021

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21 people found this helpful

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Drek…

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2021

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I enjoy the historical fiction genre and was intrigued by the premise of this book. The story takes place in Kracow, Poland during its occupation by the Nazis in World War ll. The Nazis are hunting down the Jews in their efforts to liquidate the ghetto. A few of them manage to evade detection and hide themselves in the sewers for a protracted period of time. This is actually based on true events that happened in Lviv, Poland.

The story is told through the eyes of two teenage characters, Sadie Gault, a jewish teenager who wants to be a doctor, and Ella Stepanek, a relatively affluent Polish Gentile. Sadie, in the sewer, sees Ella while Sadie looks up through a sewer grate as Ella is stepping over the grate. Ella hears a rustling noise, looks down, and their eyes meet. Therein, lies the beginning of a beautiful friendship, I kid you not.

Unfortunately, I never really engaged with the book, as it seemed to be written for an adolescent audience. I also did not enjoy the writing style of the author, never mind that I found the story a bit preposterous. I also found the characters to be two dimensional. So, reading the book was a bit of a slog. Though I was intrigued by the premise of the book, it was insufficient in all other respects important to maintaining my interest.

15 people found this helpful

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Linda L.

Waste of time to read.

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2021

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I’ve never written a review of a book before this but felt compelled to write because I found the story disjointed, poorly written and definitely hard to believe. Too many things that didn’t add up and probably could never have really happened. Like the other reviewers I felt duped at the end with the Sadie/Ella death scenario. I love WW11 stories and books but this one was a waste of time.

11 people found this helpful

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K. B. Drake

Entertaining, but Improbable yet predictable ending

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2021

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I enjoy this author’s works even if they tend to lean toward the macabre. She does a good job with her setting and makes you feel like you are in 1942 for the most part. She does tend to throw in some 2020 phrasing and attitudes that aren’t realistic for the time period.

In this book, Ella and Sadie are the main characters. I struggle to see a flaw in either of them. Every chapter of the book has the name of the character whose voice we are hearing for that chapter except the last chapter. The author pulls a sleight-of -hand, and does not put the character name at the top of the last chapter, nor does she use names to describe what is happening on whom. I think she attempted to make the reader feel that the opposite character was in the situation. It was an attempt to be David Blaine, but it didn’t work for me. I think most readers are more intelligent than given credit for on that last chapter and won’t fall for it.

4 people found this helpful

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Marguerite S.

Cardboard characters, repetitive uninteresting dialogue, insufficiently drawn plot twists

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2021

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It seemed like a potentially interesting book at the beginning, but the writer didn't develop the ideas well. The dialogue was too often simplistic and repetitive. The characters were depicted as having one-dimensional personalities and they often acted impulsively, risking their lives or the lives of others without sufficient reason. Dramatic plot situations were strung loosely together. There was too much repetition of the physical description of the sewer. I found myself skimming several pages at a time.

7 people found this helpful

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