Such a fun read! Loved this one!

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for my ARC.

The Girl from Venice by Siobhan Daiko is a short book based on WWII. A dual time line with Lidia during WWII.. Decades later Charlotte is going through items of her grandmothers and finds a Jewish prayer book letters and pictures. In search of her grandmother's story she travels to Italy to uncover the truth.

She learns her grandmother a medical student Lidia de Angelis lives in 1938 Venice with her father. Political tensions build and soon the Germans occupy Venice. Many had refused to leave when there were warnings as they didn't want to believe the worst would happen to their beloved Italy. But sadly they were wrong. Heinous happenings were witnessed by Lidia starting with the Royal Decree and worsening. She flees to the countryside and is separated from those she loves including her closest friend. She discovers she is capable of more than she had thought. Desperate times, desperate measures.

Ironic as you think of how many stories have been told about WWII and with the death of that generation how many stories have been lost. It’s a vivid tale of strength, courage, friendship, love, and betrayal which resonates the depth of horror faced during WWII and how it then impacted the lives of that generation later by keeping things from the children.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher

The characters were well-developed, and I found myself invested in their lives. The plot was well thought out and had enough twists and turns to keep me on the edge of my seat. I appreciated the attention to detail, and the author did a great job of creating a vivid world that was easy to picture in my mind.
The themes explored in the book were thought-provoking and gave me a lot to consider. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story with well-developed characters.
Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with this book and would definitely read it again. It was a great addition to my reading collection, and I can't wait to see what else this author has in store.

Its now time for a book opinion on my favorite read of this year. This is one book that I randomly picked on NetGalley, mostly because of the name of the book and like I mentioned in my older book posts, I have been reading and loving a lot of war fiction this year.

A short note on reading habit before the actual review: Remember this post? A lot of you appreciated it and while I barely continued this practice, at least it initiated me into reading articles more mindfully. As for books, I already used to savor what I read but I mostly forget what I read. Hence, going forward, you will see a structure to my book opinions. I also maintain a book journal for my notes now and I love doing that. You’ll also see me writing why I chose to read a book. It will sort of help me take a mental picture of the time I was reading that book in. I want to clarify here that I don’t read for ROI (not that that’s a bad thing) but the note-taking may sound like tedious to some of you and that’s totally understandable, but I do it to savor the book reading experience. Goes without saying that I only do it when I like to.

Onto my favorite read of the year now:

Why I chose this book?

The first line of this blog post is enough to tell.

What I Liked:

I loved everything about this book, perfection is the word – from characters to the setting to the storyline to the theme of the book, i.e. WWII.

A bit about the book – An Italian Jewish woman from Venice who is a regular medical student like any of us has to flee from Venice when the Nazi regime starts capturing Jews in Venice. I don’t want to give spoilers, even though the book blurb will mention more than what I am mentioning here. Basically, the story is about her granddaughter finding her roots by way of tracing back her grandmother’s (who never brought up her Venetian past).

I have also come to realize that I like books with two parallel perspectives where one of them is a flashback and the two kind of merge together eventually. I wish I could put down my love for this book in words, but I was essentially loved every page of it. I think it was also the right length, because even though I loved reading it, in such books, you come to a point where you want the protagonist to discover what they set out for.

The Venetian setting is a bonus and a girl on solo travel to Venice with a little bit of romance thrown in is just the stuff of dreams! Pretty sure this would make a great motion picture!

What I didn’t Like:

I really do not have anything here. If I had to nit pick, the sex scenes were definitely avoidable and seemed unnecessary.

Here is the link to the book and I highly, highly urge you to give this one a read. I am also thankful that I got the opportunity to read this one purely due to NetGalley.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. A good WWII nov el based on real events. Highly recommend. Love the cover

Fabulous!!

Emotional, evocative, poignant, heart-stopping, timely and eye-opening, I loved this so much I have since gone on to buy the paperback for my keeper shelf!

I love historical fiction and this was an emotional, often heart-breaking but utterly brilliant example. Looking out for more from the author in the future for sure!

This book was amazing. Highly recommend. It offered insight into how the war effected people in different ways. It was both heart breaking and inspiring all at once. An emotional and powerful read.

The Girl from Venice is a captivating book about an Italian-Jewish girl during World War Two. This story is filled with history about Italy during the war that we are not taught about in school. This was an eye-opening and fantastic read.

Fascinating setting, premise, and characters. I recommend this for fans of WW2 literature. The writing was at times too simple and I felt didn't do justice to the author's strength (which could be seen in few and far-between descriptive sections). But overall, I'd read another book by this author.

Thank you to BooksGoSocialGroup and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review! The Girl from Venice is a historical fiction book based on real events in Italy during WWII. I enjoy reading WWII historical fiction from time to time but the Italian side of the conflict seems to have escaped my view before I picked up The Girl from Venice. ⁣
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This book follows the story of a Jewish girl in Mussolini’s Italy as she joins the Resistance. Another narrative follows a woman in 2010 traveling to Italy to uncover her family’s past. This book taught me a lot about WWII in Italy and life under Mussolini that I hadn’t heard about before, including racial laws that persecuted Jews and the massacre of resistance fighters. The setting was lushly drawn and the modern parts made me want to run away to Italy ASAP!⁣
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Unfortunately, while I was braced for wartime themes, I was not prepared for the level of on-page violence that was depicted. Once again I’m wishing that all books came with content warnings. Something like a little note that you wouldn’t have to read unless you wanted to brace yourself.
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I think it’s incredibly valuable to ensure that history is not forgotten and this book does critical work in that regard. It was very interesting to learn about this aspect of Italian and WII history, but I can’t pretend it was a truly pleasant experience due to the level of violence. ⁣

Content/trigger warnings: rape, group rape, torture, death by fire, explicit sex scenes.

I read this book some time ago and thought I had reviewed it but alas, t seems I haven't so I will now.

The story of Lidia in the time of war, the hardships, loves lost and lives lived. But many years later the story unfolds as Charlotte (the granddaughter) finds her grandmothers Jewish prayer book, unopened letters and a photograph. The search for Charlottes roots is on and the story will reveal itself.

This story s emotional, heart-breaking and historical. It is beautifully written, the characters are relatable and is worth reading. I highly recommend it and will be reading it again.

Siobhan Daiko has a gift for bringing to life the dust of Italy's past in such a way that the narratives are not boring info dumps but is lived through the characters. Two suggestions for future books are a glossary of often-used Italian words and phrases in the narrative and a map of the historical time period covered in the novel. Both would aid readers who are not conversant with the Italian language and/or the particular historical period of a novel. A fuller review will be posted on Goodreads, ReadSusanBerry, and Amazon. Thank you for providing the advance copy through NetGalley.

An enjoyable book to read The story follows two women, one a granddaughter and the other her grandmother in Venice. There was a good storyline and I learned a lot about the part Italy played in the war. I wanted to find out what happened and read the book in a night. I do recommend that the book be read.

One of the best books I read about WWII in Italy. I had no idea of the horrible events that happened at Mount Grappa that are portrayed in this story, it was a dark period in Italy and for the world in general. WWII left many people hurting, families were wiped out because of their ethnicity, there was no compassion and no respect for human life. The characters are a work of fiction, however, as the author says at the end, they were based on real people who underwent similar situations. The story is told alternating the years of war and present days and it gives us an interesting comparison on how social parameters were observed then and now. I really enjoyed reading The Girl from Venice. The plot is believable, the characters are charming and relatable, a very good historical romance with detailed information regarding Venice and its surroundings. Looking forward to reading other books by Siobhan Daiko.

I really enjoyed this historical novel with Lottie trying to trace her grandmother's roots in war torn Venice, it makes a nice change for that to be the location in war stories and so enjoyed the historical aspect of it. Good plotline made it a compelling read and I will be looking for more books by this author

Overall, I thought it was an alright book. I found the romance part a little overdone but otherwise a good read.

A beautifully written dual timeline tale of WWII. Well researched and engrossing, this had my attention from the first chapter and kept me turning the pages, eager to see what would happen.

I’d never read this author before and am looking forward to reading more of her work.

My thanks to Books Go Social and NetGalley for a reader copy of this novel. Opinions shared are influenced by nothing other than my own reading experience.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this novel. Looking at Venice now it is hard to imagine the horrors the inhabitants endured in WW2. I thoroughly enjoyed this well written book and couldn’t put it down. I know very little about Italy in WW2 and found this book very informative . Good read if you like novels set in this era.

Based on true events in Italy during WWII, this emotional story follows the life of Lidia, a young Jewish girl who joins the Partisans to fight against the Nazis. Her story is uncovered by her granddaughter years later, who then travels to Venice to piece together Lidia’s wartime story. This is a well researched and moving story which pulls at the heart strings. Highly recommended