Book Description
From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, comes the new novel based on an incredible true story of love and resilience.
Her beauty saved her life - and condemned her.
In a Siberian prison camp, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she makes an impression on a woman doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing. Cilka begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.
Cilka finds endless resources within herself as she daily confronts death and faces terror. And when she nurses a man called Ivan, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.
*Check Goodreads for the full book description.
Her beauty saved her life - and condemned her.
In a Siberian prison camp, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she makes an impression on a woman doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing. Cilka begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.
Cilka finds endless resources within herself as she daily confronts death and faces terror. And when she nurses a man called Ivan, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.
*Check Goodreads for the full book description.
Review
I received an eARC copy of this book from the publisher. Here is my honest review.
What would you do to survive?
Heather Morris begins to explores this theme in her first book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz but dives in wit with the follow-up Cilka's Journey. There is so much to unwrap in this story: Cilka and the story itself as well as controversy surrounding the book. I'm not going to address the second part - you can search that out on your own if you are interested. I strive to avoid drama; I read a few discussions about it. I have neither the time nor inclination to research it further and form a deeper opinion. My opinion is I'm tired of people taking works of fiction and expecting them to be picture perfect representations of history. It is not hard, nor troubling, for me to take a book, inspired by a "true story" or "real life events" or even based on a historical event, and know that it is fiction yet still glimpse what the reality of that moment in time was like. Fiction is not non-fiction and we should stop treating it as such and expecting it to function as non-fiction.
Okay, now back to the book. We first meet Cilka in The Tattooist of Auschwitz and learn that she suffers repeated rape there. That she takes advantage of her circumstances to to survive and to gain favors for those close to her. I expected this book to shed more light on what Cilka experienced while in the Nazi concentration camp, which is does through flashbacks or memories. Having not read the description, I was shocked to learn that Cilka was judged harshly by those who "freed" her for her actions - many forced on her - and sent her to a Russian gulag, or prison.
This is one of the reasons why I love reading: I never realized that so many people who had already suffered horribly in World War II faced even more discrimination, mistreatment and imprisonment following the defeat of the Nazis. I'm not sure why I'm so shocked that Cilka would have been convicted of working with the enemy. She was sixteen when she went to Auschwitz. What sixteen year old girl would be able to physically refuse the attack of a man? It's so easy to stand on our side of history with safety wrapped around us and say that "I would never do that."
And yet, until we are faced with it, how would we know what we would do? And I wonder if the people who are appalled by Cilka and how she used the advantages that came her way are the same people who ignore that existence of sex slaves in our world today. That question how it is possible for someone to be walking around in the world and yet be caught in that evil trap.
There are no easy answers to these questions. It is important that they are explored. As Morris notes at the end of the book in the author notes: rape has long been a part of war and oppression. We don't like to think about it and we like to talk about it even less. But it is time to take the step that Cilka took - throw off the shame and guilt.
Well. That is certainly not where I thought this review was headed when I sat down to write it.
I found this book riveting. Who knows how Cilka mentally and emotionally survived the concentration camp and the gulag? I think Morris does a good job at exploring what existed and enabled her to do so.
Heather Morris begins to explores this theme in her first book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz but dives in wit with the follow-up Cilka's Journey. There is so much to unwrap in this story: Cilka and the story itself as well as controversy surrounding the book. I'm not going to address the second part - you can search that out on your own if you are interested. I strive to avoid drama; I read a few discussions about it. I have neither the time nor inclination to research it further and form a deeper opinion. My opinion is I'm tired of people taking works of fiction and expecting them to be picture perfect representations of history. It is not hard, nor troubling, for me to take a book, inspired by a "true story" or "real life events" or even based on a historical event, and know that it is fiction yet still glimpse what the reality of that moment in time was like. Fiction is not non-fiction and we should stop treating it as such and expecting it to function as non-fiction.
Okay, now back to the book. We first meet Cilka in The Tattooist of Auschwitz and learn that she suffers repeated rape there. That she takes advantage of her circumstances to to survive and to gain favors for those close to her. I expected this book to shed more light on what Cilka experienced while in the Nazi concentration camp, which is does through flashbacks or memories. Having not read the description, I was shocked to learn that Cilka was judged harshly by those who "freed" her for her actions - many forced on her - and sent her to a Russian gulag, or prison.
This is one of the reasons why I love reading: I never realized that so many people who had already suffered horribly in World War II faced even more discrimination, mistreatment and imprisonment following the defeat of the Nazis. I'm not sure why I'm so shocked that Cilka would have been convicted of working with the enemy. She was sixteen when she went to Auschwitz. What sixteen year old girl would be able to physically refuse the attack of a man? It's so easy to stand on our side of history with safety wrapped around us and say that "I would never do that."
And yet, until we are faced with it, how would we know what we would do? And I wonder if the people who are appalled by Cilka and how she used the advantages that came her way are the same people who ignore that existence of sex slaves in our world today. That question how it is possible for someone to be walking around in the world and yet be caught in that evil trap.
There are no easy answers to these questions. It is important that they are explored. As Morris notes at the end of the book in the author notes: rape has long been a part of war and oppression. We don't like to think about it and we like to talk about it even less. But it is time to take the step that Cilka took - throw off the shame and guilt.
Well. That is certainly not where I thought this review was headed when I sat down to write it.
I found this book riveting. Who knows how Cilka mentally and emotionally survived the concentration camp and the gulag? I think Morris does a good job at exploring what existed and enabled her to do so.
I gave this book: ★★★★
★ = I did not like it ★★ = It was okay ★★★ = I liked it
★★★★ = I really liked it ★★★★★ = I loved it
