The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (Review)

Ok this is hard to say because my personal policy of not giving reviews of books I didn't like. I always say I just won't review it if it is bad or don't like it.  And I find it hard to like anything other than Paranormal Romance or Urban Fantasy.  But I promised I would read and review. That said,


I didn't like the Postmistress by the awesome Sarah Blake right away and if not for my book club giving me the ARC with the promise I would read it, I wouldn't have finished.  Blake is so talented that it oozes from every page so it was easy to fight through the stuggling to get past the boredom. The book is beautifully written.  And though a lot of people had a problem with the jumpy, choppy flow of the book as well as found it confusing.  Even though it took me about 5 chapters to get into the book  I understood what she was doing.  She was demonstrating the feel of wartime the only way she possibly could in a book, that would do it more justice than just saying it blandly.  War is unpredictable, its not straight forward and it has a way of effecting different people, different ways for one event a thousand different rays go in a billion directions. That gets choppy a little less than chaotic.  The holocaust is a big dirty inhumane stain on humanity's history and how we ignored it for so long is a even bigger atrocity to our history.  This book is a snap shot of how it effected different people, of different types.  It was candid and honest as well as true to life.

I just like my books wrapped up in a happy little bow and neatly handed to me at the end. Not the case with this book. No happy all is well bow. No neatly and no bow at all. This was complex. Realistically so. I started reading this book feeling like I was on the cuspate of a book so great the world was going to fall in love with it. I still believe it to be so.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake is so real it almost doesn't feel like fiction.  It plays out like a movie in my head.  Or a story being told to me by a grandmother.  People who like this type of stuff will eat this book up.  They will laugh. They will cry.  They will find themselves stuck with this book inside of them for times to come.  It makes you feel, it makes you hurt.  These people are closer to you than most anyone else it seems and their pain, joys and relationships are real.  And your emotions will be raw when finished.  So no, I did not like this book.  I lived it.  I recommend you live it with me.

Casse

Thank to Barnes and Noble for the First Look.