Review: Keeping Secrets: A Novel

Keeping Secrets: A Novel by Bina Bernard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dianne's review

Dec 10, 2020    

it was amazing

bookshelves: 2020, galleys-arcs, edelweiss

I can't seem to find words to describe this novel. First, let me say that this work is semi-biographical "Bina Bernard reported on political figures and writers for People Magazine. Keeping Secrets is her first novel. Born in Poland, her immigrant experience remains central to her view of the world. She lives in New York, where her parents settled after World War II, with her husband, graphic designer, Walter Bernard." Quoted from the Simon and Shuster website. Knowing this, all I can say about this book is:

1)Amazing
2)Emotional
3)Eye-opening
4)Breathtaking
5) Tear inducing
6)Heart-breaking
7)Stirring
and lastly
8)Impressive

I have no clue how to tell you how I feel after reading this novel or explaining why you should read it, but I can say this - this book is defiantly going onto my re-read shelf. The first time I read this, I read it quickly; the next time, I want to read it to savor it. And, of course, to see it through eyes that now know how the novel ends.

For fans of All the Light You Cannot See and The German Girl, Keeping Secrets is a remarkable debut, by a veteran American magazine journalist exploring her own family's flight from Poland.

Hannah Stone, now a successful New York City journalist, was smuggled out of Poland as a child with her parents after surviving the Holocaust. They remade themselves in America, harboring the deep scars of stories never told. Now in her thirties, Hannah learns a family secret that sends her back to where she came from, on the investigative journey of her life.
 
Replayed in cinematic flashbacks, of the family’s immigrant experience and war years on the run, alternating with the contemporary family drama in the U.S. and Communist Poland, Keeping Secrets hinges on the mystery of a sister who was left behind.
 
In this sweeping, suspenseful debut, Keeping Secrets reveals the agonizing choices World War II thrust upon so many, examining the enormous price of guilt and the very heart of identity.