My Rating : 4 1/2 Stars My Notes on this ebook: Daniela is a strong woman who endured many hardships thru WW2. She lost her family horribly, and yet she found the courage and somehow moved on to find a slice of happiness. She endured having her family killed, including seeing her brother murdered and the love of her life die while they were in a militia, disrupting the Nazis and their evil plans. Even though I didn't agree with everything she believed in, I understand her. I cried many times, and the best part is that she kept her humanity and didn't kill the enemy.

I love this book. It's such a great story from the characters, background plot and all component within. Need to share this book to my family as well

Beautiful and spirited Daniela dreams of becoming a doctor while growing up in Yedinitz, Romania in 1940. She definitely has the moxie, contrariness and independent spirit she will need to succeed. But as a Jew, she is barred from higher education. Her mother, the dressmaker to a local countess, hires a tutor Mihail. The two soon begin a passionate but short romance that lasts until the Nazis invade Romania. Daniela is captured and sent on the notorious Transnistrian Death March. To survive, she must serve as a concubine. Eventually, she becomes a nurse and a partisan member as the war comes to a close.
This book tells Daniela's heartbreaking story. She witnesses intense suffering and experiences unbelievable trauma. She also meets a variety of characters who fight for their own survival and causes.
I did appreciate the unique historical look this novel provides. I never quite connected emotionally with any of the characters, though, which made reading feel like a chore instead of a pleasure.
Unfortunately, the book is loaded with sexually explicit content. While a reality of war, I don't care to read this type of content.
Thankfully, the ending is sad but hopeful.
Favorite quotes:
“By not preparing for the worst, we ensure it."
"We are all each other’s archives, so that if one survives the war, we can tell the world who our comrades have been: their names, their families, and what they have us memorize about them if they no longer have a voice."
"So it was with all people, men and women alike. We all carried our experiences with us all our lives, and it was best to accept them and not judge or condemn ourselves, but take from them what could make us stronger and more compassionate to others in their own struggles."

The premise of The Dressmaker's Daughter was very good, but somehow it left me thinking that so much of it was just 'told," not "felt." The teenage girl's life was good till the beginning of WWII and the invasion of Romania, and even after that for a short time, life remained the same. However, when it did change, it changed quickly, and painfully, and all too soon, the daughter was now an orphan and a Jewish hostage to fate, first from the Germans, and then to fellow Romanians. The heroine does describe what was done to her in general., but again, it seems like there was a remove between what she described and what she felt.

This book is good, no doubt about it, but it just lacks a little something to make it great. It was also closer to 3.5 than a true 4, IMHO.

I was given this ebook ARC by NetGalley; the views/opinions are all my own, however.

A haunting, tragic, and triumphant story of a survivor of the Holocaust who suffered outside of the camps. Some Holocaust readers might believe that Auschwitz was the only concentration camp and that all who suffered lived in the camps. I hope Daniela found some peace and happiness with her Ziggy.

The Dressmaker's Daughter
by Linda Boroff
Pub Date 01 Mar 2022
Santa Monica Press, Santa Monica Press/Teen
Historical Fiction | History | Teens & YA


I am reviewing a copy of The Dressmaker's Daughter through Santa Monica Press/Santa Monica Press/Teen and Netgalley:


Daniela is both beautiful and spirited and dreams of becoming a doctor while growing up in Yedinitz, Romania in 1940, but as a Jew, she is barred from higher education. Her Mother, a dressmaker to a local countess hires her a tutor, the rebellious and precocious Mihail. The two soon begin a passionate romance, unable to resist the powerful love and attraction they share.



After the Nazi's invade Romania Daniela and Mihail’s lives are forever changed: Mihail escapes and joins the partisans; Daniela is captured and sent on the notorious Transnistrian Death March, where Jews are starved, murdered, and robbed. Daniela is brutally raped by Romanian soldiers, and trapped by their depravity, she watches helplessly as her people are destroyed.


When Daniela's beauty catches the eye e of a Romanian Iron Guard commander, Major Dragulescu, who forcibly takes her as his concubine and also sends her to nurse Romanian soldiers in the field hospital, where Daniela cannot help feeling pity at the suffering that surrounds her.



One night Mihail appears with a troop of partisans on a mission to assassinate two key Nazis visiting the major. What happens next is both heroic and tragic, and results in Daniela’s escape with the partisans, who train her in sabotage and battle tactics. She throws herself into living on the run behind enemy lines, and transforms herself into an effective soldier and partisan leader until the war mercifully comes to an end.



I give The Dressmakers Daughter three out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I made it half way through and couldn't do it anymore. It was a romance thinly veiled as historical fiction (HARDLY historical fiction) with more descriptions of sex than anything to do with the era it was allegedly set in. Clearly just using the 'HF about WW2/The Holocaust' phenomenon to sell the story, when it was poorly written, I didn't get the impression that it was realistic to the time at all, and it honestly felt downright offensive- and unendingly misleading. Daniela was quite an annoying, pick me MC as well, which didn't increase my enjoyment of the story.

This book was a hard read for me. The only factor that drew me in was the fact that the main character was a bit unstable. Reading further into the book it talks a lot about atheism and sex. I feel like the book focused too much on it, when it should have been focusing on more historical factors. That is why I read these kinds of books. Someone could enjoy this book, but I am not that someone. I have received a copy of this book for free in exchange for my honest review.