No review - I just couldn't get in to it. i didn't get hooked i didn't give it ennough time either

I could not put this book down. Captivating. Interesting characters, great story flow that kept you wanting more! Complex relationships and life experiences. War is horrific and what this family endures is beyond words. Liked the chapters separation based on each family member. Based on real life and events this book is a must read! This is a good book that everyone should read. Highly recommend! Great writing and story telling takes you on this journey. Thanks for letting me read this book! Five stars!

I got to chapter 2 before I decided to quit. There were way too many explicit details of an intimate scene.
I received this book as a free ARC from NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking.

4.5 stars.

I have read MANY Holocaust novels but this was different. Based on a true story of the author's family. The Kurcs are a family Polish Jews [five siblings and their parents]. Separated at the start of WWI, the novel moves slowly from the spring of 1939 through the end of the war in various locales--Radom, Lvov, Warsaw, Paris, Siberia, Brazil, and many more--as the siblings and their parents moved--and were moved around Europe and other continents.

A slow, measured book, beautifully written, heartbreakingly told. We see the plight of the family through their voices and situations. A story of love, the will to survive (and reunite) and the struggle to do so. Thankfully not as gruesome as many Holocaust novels, but just as gripping--powerful and vivid.

Be sure to read the author's note at the end for more information on the family--up to present day.

Publisher: Penguin Group Viking

Pub. Date: Feb. 14, 2017 we-were-the-lucky-ones

The author, Georgia Hunter, conducted extensive research after learning (at age fifteen) that her grandfather (the character Addy Kurc in the book) survived the Holocaust. Her historical novel tracks the experiences of her real-life Polish family members during WWII. Her grandparents and their five adult children were scattered among several continents to survive. Her grandparents, their two daughters, and two sons went into the ghettos. Two sisters escaped the labor camps. The eldest brother ended up in Siberia, the youngest brother ran away from the ghetto and went into hiding, and middle brother made his way into Brazil from Paris, where he had been living before the war. The entire family survived, which I thought was unbelievable until I read Hunter’s endnotes.

The book begins in the spring of 1939. The Kurc family tried to go about their lives as usual, although the war was growing nearer, and the threats against Jews grew more intense by the day in their hometown of Radom, Poland. The reader learns of the early days of the invasion of Poland right up until the end of the war. Each family member had a different story with a different aspect to tell. I especially liked that chapters that began with dates of what was happening (as if reading a newspaper of the times), showing us that the author’s research was precise. Hunter has shared a rich and vivid history of her family through years of research. She reports that out of 30,000 Jews in her hometown of Radom, fewer 300 survived. Mind boggling. I found this to be a sweeping novel of a family’s remarkable determination smarts and love for one another that pushed them to stay alive, even in the most brutal of concentrations camps. I don’t think I learned anything new about the horrors of the Holocaust, but Hunter gave the survivors a face. At times I felt the writing was too sentimental for none of the family members had a dis-likable quality. Yet still, this was an extraordinary moving tale that should never be forgotten. And, hopefully never will be during present times as well as the future.