Review: The Butterfly and the Violin

The Butterfly and the Violin (Hidden Masterpiece, #1) by Kristy Cambron

Release Date: July 15th 2014

Official Summary:

"Today." Sera James spends most of her time arranging auctions for the art world's elite clientele. When her search to uncover an original portrait of an unknown Holocaust victim leads her to William Hanover III, they learn that this painting is much more than it seems.

"Vienna, 1942." Adele Von Bron has always known what was expected of her. As a prodigy of Vienna's vast musical heritage, this concert violinist intends to carry on her family's tradition and play with the Vienna Philharmonic. But when the Nazis learn that she helped smuggle Jews out of the city, Adele is taken from her promising future and thrust into the horrifying world of Auschwitz.

The veil of innocence is lifted to expose a shuddering presence of evil, and Adele realizes that her God-given gift is her only advantage; she must play. Becoming a member of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, she fights for survival. Adele's barbed-wire walls begin to kill her hope as the months drag into nearly two years in the camp. With surprising courage against the backdrop of murder and despair, Adele finally confronts a question that has been tugging at her heart: Even in the midst of evil, can she find hope in worshipping God with her gift?

As Sera and William learn more about the subject of the mysterious portrait--Adele--they are reminded that whatever horrors one might face, God's faithfulness never falters.

I must admit that when I requested this book on Netgalley, I did not know that this was Christian fiction. While this isn't a book I would usually read, I am so glad I did.

It's the story of survival. Adele, the Christian daughter of an Austrian military leader, was sent to Auschwitz for "reeducation" after she was caught attempting to smuggle out a Jewish family. Sera is a lost woman searching for a lost painting while trying to move on after heartbreak. Both women were deeply betrayed by someone they love. Both women wrestle with and find comfort in their faith while trying to overcome their struggles. Their lives become entangled and Adele's survival helps Sera succeed. 

This is one of the few books I've read this year with near perfect pacing. I was never bored or felt rushed, except towards the end. I feel that the ending, while satisfying, was wrapped up too quickly. 

I sincerely recommend this book to anyone interested in WW2-era fiction, regardless of their faith. 

Review: The Word Exchange

The Word Exchange: A Novel by Alena Graedon

Release Date: April 8, 2014

Official Summary: 

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.

Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . .

Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark  basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, The Word Exchange becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.

This review is not spoiler-free.

I really wanted to love this book. I had this on my to-read shelf before it hit netgalley. The main idea is that  the technology we're dependent on makes us even more dependent because it changes the English language and then it makes us sick. Clever idea but terrible execution.

The book is supposed to be the combination of Bart's journal and Ana's memories. Bart is a big fan of words no one actually uses. Early in his first chapter he describes Ana as a "variegated seraph".  He also describes her as "Ana qua Ana is, basically flawlessness qua flawlessness, sui generis". Thank god my e-reader has a dictionary. But then he develops aphasia so it takes awhile to figure out if what you're reading is gibberish or just an overcomplicated word. 

Ana really likes footnotes. While footnotes are useful in scholarly text, they're annoying in novels. It breaks up the flow of reading to go read the notes and you risk spoilers to learn nothing of use. 

Ana is also an idiot. She is repeatedly told to not use the Meme, but she always has it on her. While her naivety is realistic (her Meme is her phone, ID, credit card and everything else at once. How would you cope?) you would think she'd get the message eventually. There's also the scene in the basement. She stumbles across strangers in the basement of her (and her father's) office building, sitting at tables in a deep trance with metal discs on their foreheads and they're reading nonsense symbols. It's creepy by itself but with everything else going on the scene before her is scary. Most people would get the heck out of there. But not our Ana. She sticks one of the discs on her forehead! And then once she does leave, she goes back into the creepy people in a trance room. If she didn't have major help, she wouldn't have lived to the end of the book.

The pacing is a huge issue. There's no world building. We're looking into a world 20+ years into the future but other than the Memes and driverless cars, little else in technology has changed. The book takes place over about 8 weeks, but most of it is about the first 2 or 3 weeks. The plot is a slow, slow burn and then there's an info dump at the end. 

It took me 3 weeks to read this book (which is unusually slow for a book of this length). With most books I'm left sad it ended but with this I was relieved to finally be done with it.