THE FORGOTTEN NAMES by MARIO ESCOBAR is a brilliantly written description of the horrors perpretrated aganst the Jews in France during the Germao occupation. We learn about the brave men and women who made it their business, often paying a horrible price, to save over one hundred children from the Venissieux prison in August 1942. We see the courage and unconditional love of the parents who signed away their precious children in order to save their lives. I like to see the Jews, Catholics and Protestants working together to save God’s chosen people. I also like the scriprture references…….
In 1992: Valerie Portheret chose to write her university thesis on these forgotten children and made it her life’s work to find the real names of as many of them as possible in order to give them back their identities…….
The book is written in the form of a novel which by no means takes away from the authenticity of the historical content.
I found The Forgotten Names both informative and inspirational.
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Harper Muse. The opinions in this review are completely my own.

The topic of the story was extremely interesting! However, I did not enjoy the way the novel was written. The structure of the storyline as well as the plot rather clumsy. The more modern time did not feel real even though the main character really existed! I would never have believed it if the author had not mentioned her at the end of the book. She did not feel convincing at all and I could not relate to her. The older timeline was much more interesting, but then again, the writing style felt clumsy. I do not know whether this is due to the translation or not. To me, this novel seemed more a draft than a finished work. The descriptions of the historical characters reminded me of journalistic reports which did not fit in a novel. I did read the whole book though as I was very interested in what happened to these children.
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.