Villa of Secrets is a series of diary entries following Dora, a 16 year old Rhodian Jew who managed to escape from the Nazis through the latter stages of the second war world. These diary entries are being read by Dora’s grandchild Naomi and Rebecca years later, after Dora suffers a stroke.
The concept of the story wasn’t what I was expecting from the synopsis of the ‘first impressions’ and I think I missed the section that mentioned it was a wartime book. That being said I did enjoy reading it, until later on in the book when the horrible stories of Auschwitz was retold by Dora’s surviving brother Jacob, as I found these very upsetting, sad and brought me to tears at time. I also felt the ending was very predictable and a little boring and that I felt let the book down.
The concept of the story wasn’t what I was expecting from the synopsis of the ‘first impressions’ and I think I missed the section that mentioned it was a wartime book. That being said I did enjoy reading it, until later on in the book when the horrible stories of Auschwitz was retold by Dora’s surviving brother Jacob, as I found these very upsetting, sad and brought me to tears at time. I also felt the ending was very predictable and a little boring and that I felt let the book down.