Soul Searing and Emotionally Healing
Laure is the proprietor of a unique museum in Paris. Instead of historical paraphernalia, the museum displays personal items, each one the symbol of a broken promise.
But Laure has experienced her own broken promises, which she isn't ready to face.
Told in three time periods, this story follows Laure from her early twenties in communist Prague through her thirties in Berlin and her forties in modern day Paris.
The Museum of Broken Promises is a heartfelt and emotive walk through a devastating period in European history, and the deep scars which that era left on it's people and it's culture.
This book does a beautiful job of tracing the evolution of youth through adulthood, and innocent naivety to a sharp and unrelenting understanding of the harsh realities of life.
Young Laure has so many life-changing and impactful moments, I enjoyed the all too familiar feeling of melded joy and pain as she looked back at the moments of magic and pure youthful delight, moments which could never come again.
The relationships created in this book are both diverse and realistically complex, which gives Laure's story added credibility. The social and political climates the reader is invited to experience are so all-consuming, and the individuals who exist between these pages have been through so much fear, trial and suppression. Their motives are often difficult to understand with the time and political change that separates us, but each character is painstakingly rendered to reflect the everyday pressures and social complexities.
As I began reading this book, I didn't think I liked it. Each chapter carried me forward into a story I didn't find, on the surface, to be that interesting. I found the writing very odd, and had to check multiple times that the book was not translated, because so many of the word choices and sentence structures confused me.
As I continued however, I began to feel for the characters in this book and to be intrigued by the era which happened so shortly before I was born. By the time I was three quarters of the way through, I found that I was hooked. I was with Laure, desperately wanting to know what had become of Tomas and their dearly beloved friends. Even the writing began to make more sense, and I now wonder if the author is actually incredibly clever at writing multi-lingual characters as they would truly speak and think.
There were a few moments which I found to be a little out of place, in which it felt like the author was trying to narrate with the grit of a Swedish crime writer, but only remembered every once in a while. I can't put my finger on exactly what was wrong, it just seemed that there were a few scenes that didn't fit the rest of the narrative as they should have.
As a whole, The Museum of Broken Promises is an intelligently written and emotionally searing journey. With true to life characters and a slow but consistent pace, you will walk through this story in Laure's shoes and see her world unfold around you.
But Laure has experienced her own broken promises, which she isn't ready to face.
Told in three time periods, this story follows Laure from her early twenties in communist Prague through her thirties in Berlin and her forties in modern day Paris.
The Museum of Broken Promises is a heartfelt and emotive walk through a devastating period in European history, and the deep scars which that era left on it's people and it's culture.
This book does a beautiful job of tracing the evolution of youth through adulthood, and innocent naivety to a sharp and unrelenting understanding of the harsh realities of life.
Young Laure has so many life-changing and impactful moments, I enjoyed the all too familiar feeling of melded joy and pain as she looked back at the moments of magic and pure youthful delight, moments which could never come again.
The relationships created in this book are both diverse and realistically complex, which gives Laure's story added credibility. The social and political climates the reader is invited to experience are so all-consuming, and the individuals who exist between these pages have been through so much fear, trial and suppression. Their motives are often difficult to understand with the time and political change that separates us, but each character is painstakingly rendered to reflect the everyday pressures and social complexities.
As I began reading this book, I didn't think I liked it. Each chapter carried me forward into a story I didn't find, on the surface, to be that interesting. I found the writing very odd, and had to check multiple times that the book was not translated, because so many of the word choices and sentence structures confused me.
As I continued however, I began to feel for the characters in this book and to be intrigued by the era which happened so shortly before I was born. By the time I was three quarters of the way through, I found that I was hooked. I was with Laure, desperately wanting to know what had become of Tomas and their dearly beloved friends. Even the writing began to make more sense, and I now wonder if the author is actually incredibly clever at writing multi-lingual characters as they would truly speak and think.
There were a few moments which I found to be a little out of place, in which it felt like the author was trying to narrate with the grit of a Swedish crime writer, but only remembered every once in a while. I can't put my finger on exactly what was wrong, it just seemed that there were a few scenes that didn't fit the rest of the narrative as they should have.
As a whole, The Museum of Broken Promises is an intelligently written and emotionally searing journey. With true to life characters and a slow but consistent pace, you will walk through this story in Laure's shoes and see her world unfold around you.