The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel


 
The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel

This book was fantastic!

The Room on Rue Amalie... I discovered this book while I was travelling through the United States for a couple of days. We were stopped in a Target and I pretty much hung around with the girlfriend long enough to realize they sold books there. Naturally I made a b-line for the section as soon as I realized. I got to the section and ended up finding 2-3 other books to add to my outrageously out of control reading list. Hopefully my ‘to be read’ shelf doesn’t become a place where books go to die. Anyways, I read the book summery and it hit almost all of the points that would make it to my reading list, and perhaps to the forefront of a 450 book to be read list.  This book is recommended for readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, and Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly which were both books that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Both books that couldn’t put down from the moment that opened them over the last couple of years. With a recommendation like that this book skyrocketed to the top of my reading list, this book did not disappoint.

On my Goodreads account I rated this book a 4/5. Really the only thing missing was an overly emotional response and I believe this book was close to making it happen. The ending of the book crushed me. This is a World War II historical fiction, set in Paris.

 This book is about Ruby who is an American who fell in love and married a Marcel a Persian. When Germany occupied Paris during the Second World War, Ruby refused to leave the country and run back to the United States. Ruby and Marcel live in an apartment building next to the Dachers who are a small Jewish family. Charlotte Dacher is the young hard-headed, stubborn eleven year old who lives next door who is trying to understand many of the changes that are yet to come. One night while Charlotte has decided that she likes Ruby and considers a friend Charlotte witnesses Marcel closing off a hidden compartment in the hallway of the apartment building. Shortly after the discovery of Marcel’s secret, shortly after the discovery, Marcel is arrested and Ruby is interrogated. After Ruby proves to the Nazis that she has no idea of her husband’s crimes they begin to watcher closely. Shortly after the Germans commence mass Jewish deportations and come and collect Charlotte family, and Charlotte hides with Ruby as her life is torn apart.

            One night, a strange man comes to Ruby’s door, Ruby hesitant to answer realizes that the man at her door is on the run, wearing an allied flight suit. Ruby allows the man into the apartment and aids the downed pilot, the only down side is that Ruby doesn’t have the contacts to aid the pilot out of the country in order to get back home. Ruby begins to search for any help she can get with finding the pilot a way back home.

This book is about the struggle of surviving the occupation, for foreigners, and for Jews. With false beliefs that the government would keep them safe. One of the things I enjoyed about this book, is it wasn’t about the struggles of being sent to Lodz the ghetto, or the death camps. There is ever over looming death of being forced to worked to death, and sent to the gas chambers. If you’re looking for a WWII historical fiction that’s a little different, then this might be the book you’re looking for!

           

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