Emma's Review: The Girl Who Escaped by Angela Petch

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

As fascists march across the cobbled piazzas and past the towered buildings of her beloved home city, twenty-year-old Devora’s worst fears come true. Along with her Jewish parents and twin little brothers they are torn away from everything they love and sent to an internment camp huddled in the mountains. Her father promises this war will not last long…

When they are offered a miraculous chance of escape by her childhood friend Luigi, who risks everything to smuggle vital information into the camp, the family clambers under barbed wire and races for the border. But Devora is forced to make a devastating choice between saving a stranger’s life and joining her parents. As shots fire in the moonless night, the family is separated.

Haunted by the question of whether they are dead or alive, all Devora can do for their future is throw herself into helping Luigi in the Italian resistenza in the fight for liberty. But posing as a maid for a German commander to gather secret intelligence, Devora is sure she sees her friend one night, in a Nazi uniform…

Is Devora in more danger than ever? And will her family ever be reunited – or will the war tear them apart? 

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Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Girl Who Escaped to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.

The Girl Who Escaped is the latest novel from Angela Petch and without doubt this is certainly her best book yet. I felt it was so well written with excellent pacing and plot development, a brilliant storyline and setting and a varied cast of characters who all bring so much individually to the book. This was an action packed read and an emotional rollercoaster with many highs and lows and unfortunately at times the bad times outnumbered the good which only fuels the emotion the reader feels. There was no let up in events with something seeming to happen with each turn of the page. Therefore, the reader never got the chance to become bored or feel as if there were lulls or pages of filler. Instead, every character and scene were essential to the overall plot and the tension just increased with each new chapter. 

I found this to be a deeply satisfying and informative read. It was an eye opener as to the Jews plight in Italy and I found it staggering that over 80% of the Jews in Italy survived thanks to the resistance work of so many and the fact as the author herself said people had a moral conscience. But 80% of the Jewish population in other European countries did not make it. That really does speak volumes for the Italian people.

Devora lives in the city of Urbino in Italy, with her parents and twin brothers. The family are Jewish, her parents having left Germany many years ago but now once again the situation regarding Jews has caught up with them. It’s 1940 and Hitler’s racial laws are in full force and war has been ongoing for some time. Mussolini has sided with Hitler and entered the war. Any foreign Jews residing in Italy have to pack up their homes and are sent to internment camps. These rules do not apply to Devora or her brothers as they were born in Italy. Yet, that’s not to say laws do not affect them as they have been unable to attend school and university for some time. Devora’s long held desire to become a doctor has been curtailed as she can no longer study medicine. She can’t understand why all this is happening to her family. ’It’s as if we are a herd of cattle, branded with different colours because of our worth.' 

Devora alongside the family maid Anna Maria cares for her brothers, Arturo and Alfredo, and she is forced to grow up pretty fast. Initially, I couldn’t quite understand how the internment camp seemed to be good from the letters her parents sent her. When you read the word camp you think of Auschwitz or Dachau and the horrific conditions and unimaginable cruelty that occurred there, but things seemed different here. A year later and her parents send word that they feel it is safe for Devora and her siblings to come and live at the camp. To be honest I thought it was madness, that her parents weren’t fully aware of what was going on. That if their children were free they should stay that way. Devora soon feels like she is a bird with clipped wings. She is stifled and curtailed in the camp even though she does begin to help the doctor and gain some experience but all she wants to do is return to her home and see Enrico. Enrico alongside Luigi and Sabrina have been her friends since school but as the times change, loyalties will become tested and it will prove difficult to know who is on what side?

There are various short chapters told from Enrico’s point of view. He enlists in the army and seems to go against everything that Devora and Luigi believe in. So for this reason, I couldn’t understand how Devora was so obsessed and completely in love with him. It was evident to the reader that this wasn’t reciprocated so why did she continue to write letters to him and long for him in the way she did? I feared at one point that she would put Enrico before her family as she just seemed so infatuated with him. He just seemed too big for his boots and someone who could flip at any possible moment. That he wasn’t someone to be trusted. He had his own clear love and even though names weren’t mentioned I had a smug smile on my face when this was revealed much later on in the book because I had gotten it perfectly right and it definitely made Devora look upon Enrico in a different light. Why on earth couldn’t she see what was right before her eyes? That Luigi was the one for her. He was so loyal and devoted and just the perfectly written male character. He was there for Devora and her family every time they fell and he helped bring her back from the brink of awful situations numerous times. But I suppose when you are so caught up with someone, your heart doesn’t always allow you to see the good that is right before you.

Time passes in the camp and Mussolini is deposed. The family believe that good times are on the horizon but Luigi through his resistance work knows that the worst is yet to come. Although the Allies may have reached Italian soil the Germans will retaliate and no Jew will be spared. I thought Luigi really stepped up to the plate when Devora and her family needed it the most. He provided the family with an escape route and I found all the little details surrounding the organisation of this and all the various people that you would have thought were just going about their ordinary business had such important roles to play.

From here on in, there was no let up in different events and your heart is broken at some of the things that occur. Through what some would call fate Devora is separated from her family and my opinion of her really rose when she decides to Join Luigi and the resistance fighters. What follows is an incredible story full of twists and turns and edge of your seat stuff where remarkable bravery is demonstrated in the face of a menacing situation and injustice and hatred are rife. No one is safe But Luigi and Devora will do everything in their power and capabilities to protect people even if it means putting their lives on the line time and time again.

The Girl Who Escaped was an excellent read, a real page turner which showed how when people come together and unite as one it allows the human spirit to conquer evil. Devora goes on such a journey and turns from a flawed and somewhat innocent teenager to a strong, independent, fierce woman full of courage, ambition and loyalty in the face of adversity. She was certainly not the same person that we met in chapter one by the end of the book and despite the awful experiences and the losses she goes through she emerges all the better for it. More wise, caring and considerate and she sees things an awful lot more clearly than she has done before. Angela Petch highlights the importance of solidarity in the face of so much adversity and again I have learned about an aspect of the war that I didn’t know anything about before. Having finished the book, I have a new understanding and deeper appreciation of what went on in Italy during the war and that’s all thanks to the wonderful, fascinating and admirable characters that the author created. This was an accomplished novel which made you connect with the characters and the story being told and it’s as if Angela Petch has really found her groove so to speak with her writing as she said herself in her ends notes- it was a difficult book to write but thankfully she did because I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.