Review: "Sobibor" by Jean Molla

Sobibor by Jean Molla, translated from the French by Polly McLean
English translation published 2005
★★★

Spoilers below

Pulled this one from deep deep down on my TBR, and it's an odd one. Part YA eating disorder story, part Holocaust story. Emma's anorexia/bulimia serve as...something of a penance, plus something of a visible sign of shame, I think? The timeline was a little confusing, but the short of it is that she discovers a Holocaust-era diary that her late grandmother had stashed away; the diary is written by a French Nazi sympathizer (and Nazi himself), and the more Emma reads the more she questions what she knows about her grandmother: in addition to what Emma learns through the diary (in which her grandmother makes appearances), why did she have this diary, and who was this man to her?

I'm not sure quite what to do with this. The comparison of the body of someone who is very sick with anorexia (and yes, Emma is very sick) to a person who survived—or, for that matter, didn't survive—the Holocaust is not a new one, but here it's a bit more literal. But...when Emma eventually works out the details, she understands that the writer of the diary, despite the different name, is her grandfather. There's a whole confrontation, and it just feels odd—like someone's (the writer's?) fantasy of, well, confronting a Nazi.

It would be interesting to see this spread out over more time. Most of Emma's reaction, other than the confrontation, is confined to her relationship with food and her body. But...I'd have liked to see her really wrestle with what this means for her memories of not just her grandfather but also her grandmother. Her grandfather gets the brunt of the blame, as well he should (he's the one who happily worked at a death camp and who, somewhat less happily, committed murder himself); her grandmother, who is dead by the time Emma is working all of this out, gets less attention. But she's in many ways the more interesting character: she was at the camp as forced labor from Poland, and her relationship with Emma's grandfather meant survival...but the fact that she stayed with him after the war, buried his secrets, is something separate, and I don't think the book really gives enough room for Emma to work all of that out.

Review: "Spirit of the Mountain" by Shelley Davidow

Spirit of the Mountain by Shelley Davidow
Published 2003
★★★

I decided that I'd make some headway on my TBR, so I picked this up, because it's been on my list for years...only to find that it never actually made it to my Goodreads list. It was about time regardless, but I'll have to double-check next time!

At any rate: in Spirit of the Mountain, a young teenager from Durban goes to the countryside to stay with her uncle. She's already anorexic when the book starts, and she deteriorates as time goes on; her mother (who is city-bound and racist) is not enthusiastic about Emily's time away, but Emily's uncle is convinced that the countryside is what will cure her (never mind that he has exactly zero plan for how this will happen).

This is interesting—in many ways it's more of the same thing, one of many similar YA "issue books" about eating disorders from a particular era...albeit at the end of that era. What distinguishes this is the setting; when Spirit of the Mountain was published, apartheid had been over for less than a decade. Although Emily's uncle is the prototypical good guy who gets along with everyone, tensions are high...but also, it's eventually a sangoma (traditional healer), not a Miracle Therapist, who sets Emily on the path to wellness. (Unfortunately the sangoma does fulfil the role of the Miracle Therapist—tells Emily that her illness is because she's afraid of becoming a woman, knows exactly what she has to do, et cetera. I'm also decidedly skeptical of the idea that the right thing to do for a struggling infant is to tell its mother that she can't have him back because an equally unwell teenager is caring for him and they need each other to get better!)

Ultimately I think this is trying to do some interesting things but the timing of writing perhaps gets in the way. Anna, an African woman who works on Emily's uncle's farm, is allowed to be a smart and resourceful character, but she's not given much personality or role beyond helping other people get better; the sangoma is a peaceful man with all of the answers, but most of the other local Africans are an angry, spear-wielding mass just outside the gates; Emily is treated as a gold-star exception for not looking down on various characters on the basis of skin color. None of this feels particularly unusual for a book from this time and place (lots of trying to figure out how to write about race in a post-apartheid South Africa, I think), but it does feel dated.

Review: "Brighty of the Grand Canyon" by Marguerite Henry

 

Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Published 1953
★★★★

Yet another childhood reread. I'm not sure how it came about, but I was obsessed with this and King of the Wind (which I have yet to reread) and Brighty of the Grand Canyon; although I had (and read) some of the Misty books, these two were the ones that I came back to over and over again.

This is definitely one to be read in the context of time and place; the hunting material isn't really contemporary (though...the focus on guns might be...), and personally I find the good-guy-bad-guy material a little reductive, but eh, I don't think that part really has to do with the age of the book. I love the emphasis on Brighty's independence, which feels like a reminder to readers that not everything must, or should, be tamed.

If I read this for the first time now, I'd probably give it three stars and not think much more about it, but...what can I say, the stuff that stuck with you in childhood sometimes sticks with you. Would still recommend it for young readers, along with perhaps a discussion about what has changed since then and a Playmobil Wild West set.

Review: "Good Night, Mr. Tom" by Michelle Magorian

Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
Published 1981
★★★★★

A childhood favourite—I read this so many times when I was younger that I'm actually kind of staggered that this is apparently my first reread in fifteen years or more.

For the most part, this stands the test of time brilliantly. Magorian builds characters so thoroughly and thoughtfully, and even though I knew every plot point of the book, it managed to break my heart all over again. Such wonderful details, too.

If I'd read this for the first time now, I'd probably give it four stars; it's a beautiful book, but it is also a bit of a cliché (grumpy old man with a heart of gold and all that). I'm not sure that either Tom or William ever does anything bad or even wrong—Tom never gets angry; I don't think he makes a single mistake as a guardian/foster parent; other than one upset moment, William never acts out, and on the rare occasion that he breaks a rule, there's a ton of context. (I think there's an argument to be made that some of this comes down to trauma response, but then, this is a book written in the early 80s for children, and I think it's already doing a pretty good job at addressing trauma!)

As it is, though, I'd still recommend this highly and widely...and I'll still read it again in a year or two or fifteen, and I'll probably still give it five stars then too.

Review: "Alanna" (graphic novel) by Tamora Pierce, adapted by Vita Ayala and Sam Beck

Alanna by Tamora Pierce, adapted by Vita Ayala and Sam Beck
Published May 2025 via Harry N. Abrams
★★★

Pierce's books were staples in my family's household when I was growing up—it started with the Alanna books and grew to include the Circle of Magic books and then it kind of...went from there. My dad loved them as much as my sister and I did, and we bought new books set in whichever universe pretty much the day they came out. I've reread most of Pierce's books many, many times, as a child and as an adult (although admittedly fewer times as an adult).

I loved the recent graphic novel adaptation of First Test, and I was thrilled to see that the OG series is getting an adaptation as well. If anything, it's just surprising that it's taken so long!

The result, though—I'm not quite sure what isn't working for me, but I was underwhelmed. The art makes sense for the story; if anything, it's easier than in the original to see how Alanna could pass as Alan for so long. The emotional connection wasn't really there, though. Partly this might have been that a lot of internal stuff is shoved into dialogue, where it doesn't always fit. Part of it, to be fair, is also that some of the characters I learned so little about in this book also have very little characterization in the original (I went back and reread the original quartet pretty much as soon as I'd finished this).

I'll still be reading the hell out of any sequels as soon as they're published, and I'd still recommend this to both those who grew up with Tortall and those who didn't but read graphic novels now...but my heart is going to stay with the originals.

Review: "Summer's Ending" by Helen McClelland

Summer's Ending by Helen McClelland
Published 2006
★★★

Something of a curiosity, this: Summer's Ending is a classic 1930s school story...except published in 2006. It makes some sense, as the author did a bunch of work related to the Chalet School books (this has a very similar feel). It's a little modernized, but not all that much. We have two girls (11 and 13) sent from Malaysia, where their white British family lives, to London to join their older sister in a convent boarding school (their older brother being at a boys' school nearby). The girls aren't quite so squeaky-clean as in the Chalet School (the early books of which were written in the 20s and 30s), but they're still fundamentally Good; similarly, the school isn't quite so hyperintensely rules-based (the nuns are honestly in some ways more understanding than the relatively liberal, often untrained teachers of the Chalet School), but it's still...well, a 1930s boarding school run by nuns. Jean (the eleven-year-old) talks back and breaks rules and whatnot, but if you've read the Chalet School books, you can think of her as Grizel: a little rough around the edges, but fundamentally, you know. Good. (As in the Chalet School books, though, everyone assumes that the only valid/acceptable/up-to-standard education is an English education. So that's fun.)

Now. There be spoilers. This book was published almost twenty years ago and I don't think all that many people are seeking it out these days, but hear ye, hear ye, spoilers abound in the rest of this review.

In many ways what interests me most is the plot point of the children all being sent off to England. I know it was a thing at the time, but Christina and Roderick (the older children, twins) have not been "home" to Malaysia in years; their parents have come to visit, but between cost and the amount of time it would take them to return, the twins have not been back. Christina is a virtual stranger to Jean and Maggy; Roderick, off at his own school, is an unknown entity.

Obviously kids generally fly the nest at some point, whether that's for university or something else. Obviously children still leave home at young ages, for all sorts of reasons, and it's a long time before they go home, again for all sorts of reasons. I myself left (except, I went one town over, not miles and miles and miles away) for boarding school when I was fifteen, and though I have trouble imagining being away for five years or more at a time, I know it was done.

But there are two tremendous losses in this book: one midway through, which the characters struggle to make sense of for much of the rest of the book, and one mentioned in the sort of epilogue, with one of the sisters narrating some of what has happened since. (That is: one character dies during the course of the book, and we find out later that another character died in World War II.) And, my gosh. It is honestly more realistic than everyone living happily ever after, but you have to think that parents losing a child so far away—a child they have only seen maybe once a year since he was a very young child—would be questioning every decision they'd made about where to live and how to educate their children.

Anyway, things to think about. I'm not sure what made me shelve this one, once upon a time (more than a decade passed between me shelving it and me actually reading it!), but I suppose now I can move on to other things.

Children's books: Deutsch: "Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste" (Paris und Tokio) und "Der kleine Bubu"

Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste - Eine Reise nach Paris von Isabelle Schelling
Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste - Eine Reise nach Tokio von Isabelle Schelling
Der kleine Bubu von Lisa-Marie Dickreiter (Arena Verlag)

Kinderbücher...diesmal auf Deutsch!

In Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste - Eine Reise nach Paris haben wir zwei Hunde—Giraffenhund will reisen, aber Kratzbürste nicht. Was kann ein Hund tun?

Dieses Buch war ganz süß: einfache Reime mit interessantem Vokabular...und natürlich ein Tour durch Paris! Die Bilder sind farbenfroh und sehr detailreich. Ein gutes Buch (eine gute Serie!) für junge Leser/innen, die ein bisschen mehr von der Welt sehen wollen. Es freut mich, dass Eine Reise nach Paris nur der erste Band ist, und dass das nächste eine Reise nach Tokio zeigt.

Empfohlen für Kinder im Alter von ca. 5 bis 7 Jahren.

Und in Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste - Eine Reise nach Tokio haben wire eine zweite Reise für Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste. In Eine Reise nach Tokio fliegen sie nach...warte...Tokio. Seit ihrer Reise nach Paris hat Kratzbürste gelernt, dass Reisen Spaß machen kann...vielleicht. Er ist immer noch nicht sicher...und immer noch ein bisschen mürrisch.

Diese Serie ist so süß—es freut mich, dass in diesem zweiten Buch gehen die beiden Tiere irgendwo weiter weg. Das Buch erforscht verschiedene japanische Traditionen (von Teezeremonien bis Karaoke), und, genau wie im ersten Buch, die Bilder sind reich und frohlich. Eine Geschichte über Abenteuer und enge Beziehungen.

Wo werden Giraffenhund und Kratzbürste als Nächstes reisen...? Nur die Zeit wird es zeigen.

Und endlich ist es Zeit für ein Nickerchen—und die Erwachsenen wollen schlafen, aber die Kinder nicht! Zum Glück gibt es Hilfe: den kleine Bubu und den große.

Der kleine Bubu ist ganz, ganz süß und perfekt für kleine Kinder, die nicht schlafen wollen. (Als Erwachsene bin ich mit den Eltern...ich will immer ein Nachmittagsnickerchen!) Die Reime haben viel Energie, und die Bilder haben viele Details. Man kann das Ende voraussehen, aber für so eine Geschichte ist das kein Problem; Kinder können sich selbst in entweder den Buch-Kinder oder den Bubus wiedererkennen.

Wenn ich Kinder hätte, würde ich dieses Buch gerne kaufen, um zur Nickerchenzeit zu lesen.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing review copies through NetGalley. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Review: "Sweet Valley Twins: The New Girl" by Nicole Andelfinger and Knack Whittle

Sweet Valley Twins: The New Girl by Nicole Andelfinger and Knack Whittle
Published May 2025 via Random House Graphic
★★★

The latest in the series! In which, dear god, everyone is awful. A new girl has moved to town, and the Wakefield parents want Elizabeth and Jessica to welcome her...which Elizabeth at least is willing to do, until it turns out that Brooke is, if not brattier than Jessica (that would be difficult), a whole lot more directly rude. She doesn't want to be friends, and she wants everyone to know it.

Cue Jessica hatching up a harebrained plot to introduce a fictional identical triplet, Jennifer, to become besties with Brooke...and then set her up to be laughed at by the whole school. Now, while I'm not going to even attempt to justify this (it's cruel, and it's intended to be cruel), it is perhaps worth noting that Brooke is so rude about everyone and everything that even Elizabeth is on board with this plan for much of the book—and Elizabeth is usually a very boring little saint. (Maybe also worth noting that "Jennifer" is basically Elizabeth, except a little more wide-eyed and innocent; it's unclear why Brooke likes Jennifer so much when she wouldn't give Elizabeth the time of day.)

I don't really know what to do with this series—the graphic novel adaptations, that is. I read a bunch of the originals when I was a child and really didn't think twice about how priggish Elizabeth was or how horrible Jessica was (or, for that matter, how little their parents seem to care what they're up to until it's too late to do anything about it). I've reread quite a lot of them as an adult (tinges of masochism?) and find the whole thing quite a bit more horrifying. And from what I've read recently of the originals, these adaptations are pretty true to the inspiration, so I can't fault them for the kids being overwhelmingly monsters. The artwork isn't really to my tastes, but it gets the job done. But can I recommend these? I mean...not really. Not any more than I can recommend the originals. Too much by way of kids being absolutely horrible to each other and not retaining any lessons between the end of one book and the start of the next.

Review (Deutsch): "Never Trust Your Fake Husband" von Ally Carter

Never Trust Your Fake Husband von Ally Carter, übersetzt von Sarah Heidelberger
Herausgegeben von Ravensburger, Juli 2025
★★★★

Eine junge Frau wacht auf dem Gehweg auf—und sie weiß nicht, wer sie ist oder warum sie sich in Paris befindet. Schüsse folgen...und sie denkt, dass sie vielleicht Spionin ist. Und dann wird alles komplizierter...

Mannomann, ich liebe es, wenn ein Buch, das ich mag, auf Deutsch übersetzt wird. Ich habe 2023 The Blonde Identity gelesen...und seitdem habe ich fast alles vergessen (juhu) und könnte Never Trust Your Fake Husband fast fast wie ein neues Buch lesen.

Diese Geschichte macht so viel spaß—das erste Mal, ja, aber auch das zweite. Der Ton des Buches ist...äh...

"Ich weiß! Wahnsinn, wie gut ich undercovere, oder?"
"Das wort undercovern existiert nicht." (loc. 2704)

Und so geht es. Die namenlöse Frau (es ist nicht lang, bis sie ihren Namen findet...aber am Anfang ist sie namenlös) hat kein Gedächtnis und kaum praktische Spionagefähigkeiten, aber sie hat Mumm...und she hat auch einen ehrlich gesagt Spion, der ihr hilft. Auf Deutsch lese ich immer langsam, aber ich konnte mich nicht beschweren—mehr Zeit mit diesem Buch zu verbringen.

Jetzt brauchen wir nur noch Buch zwei auf Deutsch, vielleicht...?

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Neue Wörter
Schlüsselbein: collarbone
tollpatschig: clumsy
hinken: to limp
Bumm: boom
Tarnung: camoflage
Windbö: gust of wind
Gnadentod: mercy killing
summen: to hum
Bammel haben: to be scared
verzichtbar: dispensable
Puffbetreiberin: brothel owner
Zwangsjacke: straitjacket
frischgebackene Brautpaar: newlywed couple ("freshly baked married couple")
Schurken: villains
in die Quere kommen: to get in the way
kastig: boxy
Viehwaggon: cattle car
Popoklatscher: butt slap
Fangfrage: trick question
eineiige Zwillinge: identical ("one-egg") twins
Zerrspiegel: funhouse mirror
Wachsmalstiften: crayons
stinkwütend: furious ("stinking mad")
Tal: valley

Review: "The Last Cows" by Kathryn Wilder

The Last Cows by Kathryn Wilder
Published November 2025 via Bison Books
★★★★

Sometimes I dream about moving out West and living closer to the sky. It's not my life, but maybe in another one. In the meantime, I'm drawn to books like this: Wilder's wandering look at decades of ranching and cowboying, parenting and grandparenting, trying to balance what makes sense economically against what is best for the land.

This was a relatively slow read for me, partly because it's not really the sort of book with a lot of plot (character development, yes; A–Z plot, no) and partly because it's just quiet, lovely writing, and I didn't feel a need to rush it. Wilder takes readers through some family and land history and some of the considerations of raising cattle on public lands (the short version: public land =/= cheap or easy), but mostly it's quiet moments in cabins and searching for calves in the snow, crossing unpredictable rivers on horseback, butting heads, getting injured or escaping injury, getting back on the horse.

I read a book recently by someone who lives his life in the city, and among other things he kept coming back to the idea that there were no real cowboys left (because, basically, modern-day cowboys have access to things like air conditioning). And I kept thinking about The Last Cows as I read that—kept thinking that that other writer had no concept of what it actually meant to be a cowboy, or do cowboy work; he had an image in his head, and any deviation from that image made him assess the real-life thing as less real.

One for readers of Claiming Ground and perhaps A Mile in Her Boots.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Mystery at Monrovia Castle" by Valerie Brandy

Mystery at Monrovia Castle by Valerie Brandy
Published May 2025
★★

An animal trainer, a foreign castle, and a murder. What can go wrong?

I've been on the hunt for a cozy mystery series set in a castle or mansion or similar for some time now—none of this "I inherited a quaint little cottage without running water, how sweet!" business; I want "I inherited a rambling old manor with so many rooms that I will still be finding new ones in the eleventh book!" So here we are.

In Mystery at Monrovia Castle, Rebecca is finding her feet again after simultaneously losing her job and her long-term relationship. A job in a fictional European country seems just the ticket—especially when she sees the compensation package. And for my castle-y purposes, this worked reasonably well: Big chunks of the book are wish fulfillment for Rebecca, who is given first-class tickets (or rather: first-class plus) and a fancy suite and luxurious chef-provided meals.

As a mystery series it's not really for me. I figured out the whodunnit a little more than halfway through (when someone doesn't like dogs in this sort of book, they're always the bad guy), and Rebecca's sleuthing—not to mention the various tricks she teaches various animals—stretched my limited ability to suspend disbelief. (Also...the occasional French sprinkled throughout the book is truly atrocious. I'm reminded of What Happens in Berlin, in which the German "yes" is misspelled. And here the French "yes" is misspelled! Along with about half the other French words in the book. Now I just need a book where the Spanish "yes" is misspelled, and I'll have a trifecta...)

It's still fun, and a very fast read—I wasn't really the audience for it and probably won't come back to the rest of the series, but it's not a bad one for those looking for a quick cozy series that isn't too deep and lets the reader pretend they're swanning around in a castle with a duke-ish romance on the horizon.

Review: "Bones, Mirrors, and Lies" by Sidney Hoeppner

Bones, Mirrors, and Lies by Sidney Hoeppner
Published June 2025
★★

One of those memoirs that is heartfelt but perhaps written a bit too soon. Hoeppner wrote this a few months into working toward recovery, and the ambivalence is clear; at times Hoeppner writes as though she is fully recovered, but then it becomes clear how much she is still struggling. (Even the six mentions of a particular weight—not to mention that same weight on the cover—in a book that is only a hundred-odd pages long suggests to me that part of her is still finding some validation in illness.)

All of this is a very normal place for someone to be in, just a few months in, but it's more catharthis-writing than anything. I hope that with more time she'll continue to get into a better place.

Review: "The Searcher" by Tana French

The Searcher by Tana French
Published October 2020 via Viking
★★★★

There's never a bad time to read a Tana French book, but it seemed like a particularly good time to pick one up when I saw that the final book in this series will be out in March. The Searcher introduces a new character—Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago detective who has up and moved to rural Ireland. He's looking for a quieter life, a more predictable life. That's not quite what he finds.

If you've read any Tana French, you'll know that one of her (numerous) strengths as a writer is character development. The Searcher is heavy on that: Cal is looking for a missing young man, yes, but he's also looking for answers about what fell apart in his life in Chicago, and for what moving forward might mean. French has a delicate hand with plotting—one of the reasons the book is relatively long, I think, is that this isn't a mystery in which every thread Cal chases down leads him to the next step; this is a mystery in which every thread tells him something, but not necessarily something he can act upon; in Chicago he had a badge and a gun and an entire police force by his side, but in Ireland he's starting from scratch.

I've seen comments that this is a slow book, but I pretty well flew through it. There's a twist midway through that threw me for something of a loop; another twist later on surprised me less (perhaps because it was more the type of twist that I expect in a mystery) but still kept things, well, surprising. I'm still contemplating the "how things went down" part of it (and will be interested to see how various relationships develop over the course of the series), but it was satisfyingly no-good-answers. The thing I'm least convinced by is Cal's ability to distinguish accents—yes, he has a knack for noticing things, but I struggle to think that he's been there long enough to work out which Irish accent is from where. (Obviously there are exceptions, but for the most part I wouldn't assume that an average American off the street could distinguish between an Irish accent and a Scottish accent, let alone a Dublin accent and a local village accent.)

Overall, much looking forward to seeing where the rest of the series goes.

Review: Short story: "The Kill Clause" by Lisa Unger

The Kill Clause by Lisa Unger
Published December 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

It's the holidays, but Paige is at work. That's not a big deal—but there's just one problem. Her job is a contract kill, and her target's daughter is unexpectedly at home. The rules of the game dictate one thing...but Paige's conscience dictates another.

This is my second short story from Lisa Unger, both of them dark and brief. The Kill Clause has shades of Mr. & Mrs. Smith—which is to say that, fear not, it's a different story with a different plot and different characters, but when you have various assassins running around and having romances, it's hard not to make a connection.

The strength of the story is in its red herrings...and perhaps also in the sense of cat and mouse, and of cat becoming mouse. (And also: the part of me that enjoyed watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith also really enjoys the occasional light read about assassins.) The weaknesses are twofold—first, the limited motivation and character development we get from the story's baddie, and second, Paige's inability to see what's right in front of her, which seems ever so slightly crucial for someone with her role. But collectively it makes for a nice snappy story with a bit of holiday and a bit of horror. More impetus to pick up one of Unger's full-length books at last!

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Running Out of Time" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Published 1995
★★★★

Another childhood reread: Jessie is happy with her life in 1840, but she's also worried: there's a diphtheria outbreak, and people keep getting sick and sicker. And then her mother tells her something impossible—it's not 1840 at all, but 1996, and Jessie needs to go to the outer world to seek help.

This is another one that stands the test of time (...pun not intended). Jessie has to learn so much so fast, and there are so many things that a contemporary reader would never consider—that she doesn't know how a flush toilet works, for example, or that she doesn't know about pesticides; her instinct (which fortunately she doesn't get the chance to act upon) when she meets a Black girl is to ask her about slavery, because...she's never learned that slavery was abolished. She doesn't know how a phone works, let alone a pay phone, which in some ways has come full circle—I imagine most kids her age in 2025 also wouldn't ever have used a pay phone! Jessie has to be incredibly resourceful to figure out not just how to get the help she needs but to do so without alerting anyone to the fact that almost everything she sees is new to her.

Running Out of Time was reissued as recently as 2023, and I'm glad of it; this is one that kids should still be reading.

Review (Deutsch): "Ein Muslim auf dem Jakobsweg" von Mouhanad Khorchide

Ein Muslim auf dem Jakobsweg von Mouhanad Khorchide
Herausgegeben von Verlag Herder, August 2024
★★★

Pilgern war für Khorchide nichts Neues: er hatte schon Wallfahrt nach Mekka gemacht. Er hatte aber Zeit, und Neugier, und er hat für etwas anderes entschieden: eine Fahrt nach Santiago, auf dem Jakobsweg.

Ich habe so viele Bücher gelesen, die um dieses Thema beschäftigen—oder, über den Jakobsweg. Ein Muslim auf dem Jakobsweg ist das erste Buch, das ich gelesen habe, dessen Autor weder Christ ist noch einen christlichen Hintergrund hat. Ich konnte natürlich nicht Widerstand leisten.

Der Anfang des Buchs fand ich ganz charmant. Khorchides Verständnis vom Pilgern kam aus Mekka, und bei der Wallfahrt nach Mekka, ist Mekka das Ziel. Wenn man in Mekka ist, fängt die Wallfahrt wirklich an. Aber auf dem Jackobsweg ist der Weg das Ziel. Santiago hat eine Kirche, ja, und das Grab eines Heiligen, aber die Verwandlung (wenn es eine Verwandlung gibt) passiert unterwegs. Und so musste Khorchide seine Pläne ändern: statt in Santiago zu bleiben, lief er züruck in Richtung Sarrià.

Ich war so naiv und ahnungslos, was die christliche Pilgerfahrt betraf, dass ich alles, was ich über die islamische Pilgerfahrt nach Mekka wusste, einfach auf mein neues Vorhaben projizierte. (loc. 43)

Ein Muslim auf dem Jakobsweg beschreibt also seine Erfahrungen auf einer Wallfahrt, die er rückwärts gemacht hat, und seine Gespräche auf dem Weg. Khorchide ist mit einer offenen Einstellung gekommen, und es freut mich, dass er so viel Neugier hat. In der Mitte wurde mir das Buch ein bisschen langsam—normalerweise überfliege ich nie Bücher, aber das Kapitel "Aus der Perspektive eines Baumes"... Ich habe überflogen.

Vielleicht würde Khorchide nächstes Mal die "ganze" Wallfahrt probieren—und vielleicht wäre seine Erfahrung sehr anders sein. Aber fürs Erste macht dieses Buch etwas Neues und Interessantes.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Neue Wörter
Möchtegernpilger: would-be pilgrim
die Wallfahrt: pilgrimage
Opfertiere: sacrificial animals
Opferfest: Eid al-Adha
Laien: laypeople
Bittgebete: prayers of supplication
die Demut: humility
Gehhilfen: walking sticks
barmherzigen: merciful
Visitenkarte: business card
Überlebenskünstler: survival artist
zweitrangig: secondary

Review: "A Little Piece of Cuba" by Barbara Caver

A Little Piece of Cuba by Barbara Caver
Published December 2025 via She Writes Press
★★★

In another life, Caver might have grown up in Caribbean luxury: Her mother's family hailed from Cuba, where they had led privileged lives. As Castro came to power, though, they quietly relocated north, settling into a comfortable life in the US and—for most of them—never returning. And so Caver grew up knowing her roots but struggling to understand what they meant for her identity. What made one a "real" Cuban or a "real" Cuban American?

My mother's story is one of assimilation, whereas mine is one of differentiation. (loc. 1570*)

I enjoy both a family memoir and a travel memoir, so this was a good fit for me. There's not quite so much travel as I expected—just five days in a country, I guess, can't really compare to a whole life of experiences. I wasn't really sure how to feel about "Sara the real Cuban" (a character who is an amalgamation of people in Caver's life who helped her figure out what it meant to be Cuban American), as I suppose that the takeaways are more important to the story than introducing numerous characters who just pop in and out, but at the same time I would have liked the richness of detail that introducing those characters might have allowed.

My grasp of Cuban, and Cuban American, history is admittedly shaky: I learned a little bit about Cuba in school, of course, but mostly what remains are vague memories of the Elián González case and a history lesson or two about the Cuban missile crisis. If your grasp of history is similarly shaky, you might find it useful to brush up before diving into A Little Piece of Cuba, as there's some history here but the emphasis is very much on the way in which Caver's family background affected her, not on what has happened in the country. Fascinating to think, though, about the different reactions to immigration and refugees over time. While I'd never say that someone who had to flee their homeland was lucky, within the context of that flight, Caver's family was in a good position—coming with, it sounds like, established financial stability; part of a population that the US government welcomed into the country. (Considering that the current US government only seems enthusiastic about accepting white South Africans into the country...well, it was definitely a different time.)

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.