BOOKS | BOOK REVIEW | CULTURE
“The World That We Knew” Offers The Unexpected
A Supernatural Twist Uplifts This Story of the Holocaust
There’s a book my teenage daughter loves called, They Both Die at the End. I would never even consider picking up this book. I don’t tend to read books about depressing subjects because, well, they are depressing. I prefer playful, adventurous, or even horrific escapism. Still, sometimes, picking up a biography, historical fiction piece, or something deemed as “literature” can be a welcome break from the stew of murderers, vampires, angsty teens, and happy endings I indulge in regularly. The World That We Knew: A Novel by Alice Hoffman was such a break.
This book was a break from formulaic writing but is arguably more horrific than anything Stephen King or Dean Koontz ever dreamed of. As readers, we know this going in though. This is the story of a handful of Jewish people trying to stay alive in Nazi Germany from 1941–44. At its core, it is a love story, addressing many kinds of love, but the one most focused on is that of a mother for her child. What would a mother do to save her child and what are the consequences if she goes further than breaking laws of man, or religion but actually violates laws of nature?
