Reviewed by Emma Crowley
The worn leather-bound diary, tied with a red ribbon, has hidden the truth for seventy years. The spine crackles as she opens it, reading the long-forgotten words of her grandmother. “What if you never come back? What if you die trying?”
Nazi-occupied Prague,1942: Amelia is hiding in her closet when flashlights blind her and she’s captured by the SS. Out on the cobblestone street, her heart shatters as her mother is shot before her eyes. She is shoved onto a freight train with hundreds of others—hours pass as they travel in darkness.
Arriving in a concentration camp, Amelia fears for her life when she is led to a block by a soldier. He is her enemy, yet he secretly passes her a piece of bread; an act that saves her.
They are meant to despise one another, but Amelia and Charlie are powerfully drawn to each other. Amelia sees how Charlie risks everything to save prisoners from deportation—and she sees the kindness in his eyes.
Amongst so much tragedy, falling in love is a miracle. Yet, one day, Charlie utters those miraculous words. “I’m in love with you. To everyone else, we’re wrong, but what does that matter when nothing in this world is right?”
But under the all-seeing gaze of the guards and endless watchtowers, there is only so long they can keep their secret—and the very act of loving each other endangers their lives. Will they remain loyal to each other in the face of death? And when they finally say goodbye, will it be by choice or by force?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Girl with the Diary to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
As I didn’t have time to read and review all three books in this resissued trilogy from Shari J. Ryan which all follow a similar storyline with the exception that each book is told from a different character’s perspective, I decided to read the first book -The Girl With The Diary. I read it in one sitting as it is a quick read and my immediate thoughts after finishing it were it is a good read with a unique concept overall, writing three books from a different viewpoint. The themes are ones which I have read an awful lot about in books set during World War Two. Still it never gets any easier to read of the atrocities that took place and the suffering, humiliation, degradation and terror inflicted on so many simply because of their religion.
The author has a warning before the story begins that this read is incredibly graphic regarding the experiences the characters endure during the Holocaust. To be honest and this is not to take away from what so many people went through, but yes what I read was horrific and hard to read at times but I have read other books which have been far more graphic in detail and which left me open mouthed in shock. It’s not that I have become hardened to what I read given I have read endless amounts of books in this genre it’s just I felt the warning was unnecessary and in fact the author could have gone into even more detail as to what the main character Amelia tolerated when she was imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Casting this issue aside this is a story of one woman reliving her experiences during the war. A war which her family did not survive. Amelia has kept a secret for 74 years. It’s a secret which brings forbidden love to another level and it makes this book a divisive read and one which would inspire much debate.
Amelia is now 92 and living in Boston, having arrived in America when the war ended. Her story has remained hidden deep in the corners of her mind and like anyone who has suffered trauma she has blacked things out as she can’t imagine the consequences if her secret was revealed. The effects it would have on her family don’t bare thinking about. As a survivor, Amelia feels a numbness inside that she uses to protect her from the pain of the memories that have lasted a lifetime. She made a life for herself in America with her husband and two daughters Annie and Clara and in turn she loved her granddaughter Emma. But now she is nearing the end of her life. She feels uneasy that something is wrong that she hasn’t much time left.
Emma calls to her house as she does daily and Amelia falls ill. She is rushed to hospital having suffered a stroke. The doctor Jackson Beck saves her in time but warns her heart is weak and she needs an operation. Amelia is confused and talking about the past asking for a man called Charlie. Nobody knows who she is talking about as Amelia has never opened up about her past. Emma is urged to find a diary where Amelia has written down her life story. She locates the book and from that point on we move back and forth between the war years and the present day as Emma reads of Amelia’s life story which is harrowing and shocking but also a story of unimaginable strength and resilience.
I love dual timeline books, that’s if the two stories merge together perfectly but here weaving back and forth between the past and the present it felt as if I was reading two separate stories and at times two separate genres. In the present day it was like I was reading a romance story as Amelia despite how ill she is tries to get Emma together with Jackson. It just felt so out of pace in a book of this nature. One minute I was reading about the ghetto and the illness, starvation and danger Amelia and her fellow inmates were experiencing and the next chapter was all laughing and joking over Emma’s love life. It was like a total disconnect existed between the two strands of the story. I wasn’t interested in Emma and Jackson and there was far too much detail of should they go out on a date and let it develop into something more?
Emma literally stepped out of one relationship and within hours was in another. Nearing the end I realised why Amelia pressured Emma so much regarding love but still overall the way it was developed wasn’t right for me. The chapters from Emma’s perspective were far too long and I just wanted to get back to Amelia’s story. To be honest, I found myself rushing through Emma’s chapters as quickly as possible in order to return to Amelia and Charlie in the past. It’s only in the last few chapters from Emma’s perspective that things got interesting and focused more on linking the past with the present regarding Amelia. The modern day strand wasn’t badly written it’s just there should have been less of it and even more of a focus on Amelia than was given to her which was a lot I know but I wanted much more.
So to Amelia’s story which was the strongest element in this book and I know loved is the wrong word to use but I did love her as a character and yes she is divisive in her actions but that’s what makes you keep reading wanting to find out more about her and what she does during the war. Before everything changed, Amelia lived in colour. Her heart was protected. She was surrounded by love and brightness but that all altered and turned to grey and dark. ‘Raindrops that once fell from the sky bled into the tears that burned down my cheeks’. Amelia loses everything and everyone she has ever known. Germans arrive to her home knowing the family is Jewish and despite hiding, they are caught. Her mother is murdered in cold blood in the street and Amelia and her brother and father are taken away. They travel with many others in deplorable conditions and once they have arrived at Theresienstadt they are separated. As Amelia says, a ghetto was formerly defined as a ‘place where segregated religions would gather and live in a communal area’ whereas now they are ‘a place where prisoners were kept against their will behind barbed fences’.
Amelia is imprisoned in barracks with numerous other women. They are left to starve more or less as rations are not sufficient. Disease, illness, hunger and the stench of death and decay and pain and fear surround her. She wants to live on for the mother who left her but she doesn’t know how she can exist and survive to make it out of this hell hole. Being one of the slighter fitter women she is given a job in the medical quarters cataloguing those who are ill. Here she tries to take things that will help those in the barracks suffering but the person she wishes to help the most, well she is not successful in that regard. Amelia is wasting away but there is someone who has had their eye on her ever since her family was torn apart. Charlie is his name. He is a German soldier and instantly you feel as if danger is around the corner. But Charlie is different he has been forced to enlist. He does not have the same mindset as all the others. He has been told what way to feel and act towards Jews but deep down he is of the opposite belief. Of course, in the open he must act like a loyal and dedicated serving member of the German army but secretly he starts to help Amelia, slipping food to her whenever he can.
The reader can clearly see that Charlie develops deep feelings for Amelia as they steal time together whenever they can despite the danger surrounding them. Amelia never ever confesses her love for Charlie and there are a multitude of reasons why. First, you wonder does she love him at all or is she just using him to try and survive day by day and make it through to the end which seems so far away. Secondly as she says ‘some would consider what I did as wrong and equally horrendous, as what heartless ones did to my whole race’. This is the crux of the matter and what makes the story so divisive. Would you have done the same as Amelia? Engaging with the enemy? Was it genuine or fake?
She shared a love with someone she shouldn’t have as ‘through a cloud of dust and despair, I found a glimmer hope, a smile amongst the sunken cheeks and rotten corpses’. It makes you question what you would have done in the same situation? Amelia, stands by her actions and beliefs because the heart wants what the heart wants but at the age of 92 she still has one major regret. Is love stronger than hate? If what Amelia did comes out into the open how will her daughters react? As Emma reads further through the diary her opinion of her grandmother changes and she wonders what happened to separate Charlie and Amelia? They were ‘each other’s hopes and dreams amidst the horror and destruction around us’.
The Girl in the Diary is a very good read. Amelia in the past makes for riveting reading but as mentioned up above I rather glossed over Emma and her romance in the present day. Will Amelia’s story change people’s way of thinking? Well, it would certainly provide plenty of debate if you were to read this as a book club choice. I know I was of one firm viewpoint before beginning this book and now honestly I am caught right in the middle. When time allows I will definitely read The Prison Child which follows Annie’s journey and The Soldiers Letters which details Charlie’s perspective. This is a remarkable story of survival but also one of heartbreak and sacrifice.
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