Review: The Girl from the Train

The Girl from the Train by Irma Joubert
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this book as I was on a WWII roll, and from the blurb it sounded as pretty good.

I'm afraid to say it was a big disappointment!
It does start very well: Sometime during WWII a little girl is thrown from a train in Poland. The train is headed for a concentration camp and her grandmother and mother try to save her and her sister.
Her sister is very ill and dies shortly after, but a young farmer "adopts" her and takes her into his family.
When the war is over, as he can't support her, he takes to Germany, from where she is sent to South Africa to be adopted there.

Gretl, the little girl, is lovely: smart, fearless, independent. Jakób, the Polish farmer is also smart, driven, a revolutionary. There is a part in the book, about Czechoslovakia in the 1950's and the political events happening that is extremely well researched and written.

When Jakób and Gretl reunite, many years later, she is the opposite of the little girl: a very uninteresting young woman whose favorite words are Mommy and Daddy.
There is much talk about religion (if I knew about it I wouldn't have requested this book to read), and what makes me more uncomfortable is the fact that Gretl is sent to South Africa as she appears to be pure Aryan. Also, no talk of Apartheid?

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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