I enjoyed this book although I was not overly fond of the audio. The narration was just too dramatic for me.

4 Stars

Content: all the typical content of WWII books (although most isn't super detailed) ( )

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: War themes, World War Two, fire, blood depiction, antisemitism, gun and military violence
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.


So. It's not clear why I decided to hold this book off for so long, putting delay after delay, but now only a few days ago, I picked it up, cracked it open, and read this. I have a statement though, historical books tend to be a hit or miss, since the last outstanding ones were I Must Betray You and Words on Fire. I read those months ago. But! Afterwards, I read a string of dissatisfying books so I desperately wanted an enjoyable one. This was it. On the plus side, it's based on a true story during World War II. It starts with the main character Stefania Podgórska, or Stefania for short, and she lives in Poland during the war, I wouldn't want to live in that time considering the circumstances, I noticed the book had a unique attribute going for it, it sometimes can jump from time to time, making this book non-linear. Stefania sometimes uses pseudoynms or false names like Fusia but for simplicity's sake, I'll still call her Stefania, now that I said that she is working for another family called the Diamants even though they are Jewish, and she is Catholic. Not many pages afterwards, the Germans arrive and occupy the town of Przemysl leaving Stefania and her sister Helena by themselves, and the way the author wrote this was immersive and compelling, no wonder this got a Western Australian Young Readers' Book Award this year, unfortunately this is the only book from this author my library has so I can't read any more books from her yet, if they do get more books from her, I'd gladly read them. From this point on, Stefania must make some choices for herself, so first she hides a Jew from the Germans inside her attic (because of reasons...) then she hides twelve more, I never felt at ease when reading this since the author wrote this with so much suspense and tension, and Stefania shared my feelings since she was also living uneasily which led up to the climax and I won't spoil it but it's not anticlimactic (I'm looking at you, fizzling out books...) and it's also a high note. Wow. ( )

This book simultaneously tore my heart out and gave me hope. ( )

Alguien golpea a la puerta, y Stefania debe tomar una decisión...Es 1943 y Stefania, de dieciséis años, ha estado trabajando durante cuatro en la tienda de comestibles de la familia Diamant en la ciudad polaca de Przemysl, conquistándolos con sus canciones. Incluso le ha hecho una promesa a uno de los hijos de la familia, Izio: un compromiso matrimonial que deben mantener en secreto porque ella es católica y los Diamant son judíos. Pero todo cambia cuando el ejército alemán invade Przemysl... ( )

Takes place during the time of World War II, characters going through a scary and deadly time when the Nazis invade their country, many novels about this time period have been written to show the reader what people really went through during this scary time, involving a gut wrenching situation of life or death, best for older teens due to length and more intense detail