To be honest, I don't remember requesting this book, but since I got it, I must have. I tried hard to read it, but in the end the writing just wasn't good enough, nor the story at all interesting. It's really too bad, because the book looks (and sounds) like it should be interesting. ( )

This book seemed to be well written and the dates and events mentioned seemed authentic, but it never really grab my interest. I had a real hard time staying with the book and finally gave up on it. The author obviously did a lot of meticulous historical research and did a good job turning all of this history into a novel. I guess that delving this much into Jewish history just didn’t interest me enough. ( )

This book was so hard for me to read that I never got through more than 10 pages. The concept of the story was very intriguing, and I was very excited to have the chance to read it. I REALLY wanted to enjoy this book, and I moved it to the top of my list to start it the day after I received it. However, I was never able to find my footing. It seemed as if it were in a different language. To make matters worse, I got the feeling that I was supposed to know what the author was talking about. As if I had just heard a joke that everyone around me thought was funny, but I didn't understand the punchline.

This is the autobiographical story of a family; a father traditional; a mother open to the world beyond her culture; and the son given love of knowledge and books from both parents. The mother and son have an atlas they use to travel the world. The father and son have a loing, but traditional relationship. The book starts well, with old remembered people and relationships, but starts to wander with digressions to other family members and other people coming into the forefront of the story. The Diaspora of the Jewish peoples across all of Eastern Europe and their hope to one day again be in the land of their forefathers becomes the main story.
Written by the author who lived all of the events makes the book interesting. But the constant use of Jewish terms and Yiddish words left me stumbling over the langauge more often than not.
The horrible, violent, hateful time of the Holocast is where the book ends, with questions as to where and how people end their trip.
I read the book with interest, even though left confused by the langauge at times. It was difficult to follow because much of it seemed to be nostaligic memories - albit some not so good memories. Would I read it again? Probably not, it does not have the power to gain my attention again or say more to me. It is labelled "Part One" so maybe I would read Part Two. I would give it 2.5 stars. ( )

The writing style in this book was very poor. Sentences were badly constructed, and the storylines were extremely hard to follow. The actual stories were interesting and deserved a book that really celebrated them, instead of losing them in confusing language. ( )