Jordyn Taylor

2.5 Stars

CW: Mother suffers from depression and has attempted suicide, war crimes

This WWII story is about Alice trying to uncover the mystery of why her grandmother left her an apartment in France in her will. She has uncovered the journal of Adalyn (her great-aunt) and tries to piece together why the apartment was abandoned after the war. The story is told in alternating narrative between Alice and Adalyn. I enjoyed Adalyn's voice more as her actions drove the plot forward. A couple of the characters had some mental health issues which, in my opinion, didn't seem to fit into the story. I feel like this was included in to add depth, but too me it felt superfluous as the main story-line was sufficiently engaging. That being said, I felt even this could have been fleshed out a bit and more tension added. At no point did I feel like I was on the edge of my seat as I have been in similar stories. Just an okay book for me.… (mehr)

This was a pretty entertaining read - a solid 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. This is a dual timeline storyline but is pretty easy to keep straight regarding the characters and actions which isn't always true when a story time jumps. The stories parallel each other in a lot of ways and, of course, they come together in the end. The characters and relationships change and grow as the mystery unfolds and it kept me interested throughout but what I found most interesting was the concept of "groupthink." The author uses both modern day school setting and cold war era red scare mentality to expand upon the concept. It shows how close we always are to giving up ourselves to authority and I think that's an important commentary for today's society and gave it the bump up to 4 stars.… (mehr)