Author: Chris Bohjalian
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell, Alison Fraser
Published: July 17, 2012
Publisher: Random House Audio
Format: Audiobook
Length: 11 hrs 9min
Genre: Adventure, Historical Fiction, Romance
Rating: ★★★★☆
[Show Synopsis]
Synopsis
(from Goodreads)
When Elizabeth Endicott
arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash
course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian
language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has
volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver
food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There,
Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has
already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to
join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters,
and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young
American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.Flash forward
to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in
suburban New York. Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was
affectionately nicknamed the “Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really
given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls,
claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting
an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through
her family’s history that reveals love, loss—and a wrenching secret that
has been buried for generations.
Review
I'm kind of mad at myself for not writing this review earlier when I finished the book. I had a whole page of notes and comments about this book, and I can't find it. I think I must have left it in the book when I returned it to the library.
This book was somewhat of a shock to me. It was recommended to me by my Grandmother. I knew it was about a world war and since she is so interested in World War II, I thought it was going to be another escape the Nazis book, so I was really surprised to find out it was about World War I. Most people don't know too much about the first World War. The Holocaust is so publicized that they don't realize that the first World War also contained a genocide of massive proportions. As it was called in the book, "The Genocide You Know Almost Nothing About."
