100 stars. Kudos to D. R. Bell for taking what must have been an infinite amount of time to research the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. If you read one book about the Holocaust this must be the one. I was worried about reviewing this book because I could never come up with adequate words to do it justice. Eleos will open your eyes to things you don’t want to know about. How did the survivors of Auschwitz and of the Holocaust really feel? How did society feel about them for living? What role did every country, the United States included, have during the time leading up to and after the Holocaust? How did big corporations like Deutsche Bank support the war effort before and after? Learn about the Auschwitz trials and Eichmann’s trial and how so many Nazi leaders and collaborators were excused for killing thousands of men women and children. Learn about the people that felt it was important to hunt down and prosecute the Nazi leaders after the war. After living through and witnessing the Armenian Genocide in 1915 where 1.5 million people were killed, How did the world let something like this happen again? How does the world continue to let this happen? Many times I find myself reading fast to get to the next book. Eleos is one of those books that you will read slow because you don’t want it to end. From page one to the very last page you will be captivated and horrified. Thank you D.R. Bell for putting this story down on paper, these stories must continue to be told and you have done it better than anyone.

This book has a lot going for it in terms of its exploration of two of the worst atrocities of the 20th century – the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. It takes a serious look at the repercussions of these tragedies, and examines their effects down through the generations. The very nature of evil, the desire for revenge, justice and the impact on ordinary human lives and families, all are tackled here to good effect. It’s a vivid and unflinching look at the very worst that humans can do to one another. Nevertheless, however important the themes and issues it raises, it is a novel and must be judged as such, and I didn’t find it a compelling or satisfactory one. I felt that it was just too ambitious for its own good and tried to cover too much ground. The sheer number of characters made it hard to identify with any one of them in particular. The interweaving plots are just too convoluted and I found the narrative thread hard to follow at times. Because I wasn’t invested in the main storyline, I even found myself bored on occasion. The approach is just too scattergun and complex to make it a satisfying read. A bit of editing and a more concentrated narrative would have improved it.

After recently uncovering a WWII ethnic cleansing story within my own family, I have been reading whatever I can about postwar times to learn as much as I possibly can about the era, struggles, trials, heroes, criminals, and, most importantly, the victims. In Eleos, Avi Arutiyan stumbles upon correspondences written to his grandfather by a Holocaust survivor which sends him on a journey to uncover some rather dark mysteries connecting his own family to another. Sometimes all it takes is something as simple as an old letter to send one’s descendant on such a journey to learn the truth, and I found that quite relatable as a similar situation has happened to me.

Because my knowledge of the Holocaust and postwar events comes from grade school years—which, completely glossed over just about everything important—a majority of what I am hearing and learning is for the first time through my own research and reading. Being unfamiliar with the Armenian Genocide and the postwar trials of Nazis, I struggled to keep up with certain parts of the story. Sometimes a character name was mentioned and I had to go back to see if, how, and when they were mentioned before. I also wished I had read the Author’s Commentary at the end before I began the book itself, just for some context and better understanding of events and people.

The entire novel was beautifully written, however. I enjoyed the way the author weaved the past and present narration, allowing significant characters to tell their version of events as it was unfolding. Certainly, this is one of the most important WWII historical fiction pieces that has been written. While the descriptions of Holocaust atrocities were terribly hard to stomach, it’s a slice of history that needs remembering and the victims never forgotten. I don’t believe I have read a WWII historical fiction novel like this before and it stands out among the others.