Vacation Read 3: The Things We Cannot Say

Last month, upon completion of The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer, I realized that I'd never read her first Holocaust novel, The Things We Cannot Say. The two are somehow connected although for the life of me right now, I can't remember what the connection is. 

I can, however, tell you that I liked The Warsaw Orphan and I really liked The Things We Cannot Say.

The Things We Cannot Say has two main storylines. One is Alina's story set in Nazi-occupied Poland. The second story is set in the present. Alice is struggling in her married life, is overwhelmed parenting two exceptional children, and her grandmother Hannah is dying.

Hannah has just had another stroke and is most likely at the end of her life. She has lost the ability to speak. Alice's son, Edison, is a non-verbal boy on the austism spectrum who communicates with Alice via an app on his iPad. Alice realizes that she might be able to communicate with her grandmother using the same app. Once she does, Hannah has a request. She wants Alice to go to take a trip to Poland for her. She  wants photographs of her home, but the rest of her requests are lost in translation.

Usually when I'm reading a novel that has dual timelines and stories, I find one more engaging than the other. In this case, I was equally captivated by the raw emotions of both. I'm pretty sure I cried reading both narratives. This is a novel about relationships, about love, about commitment. I would highly recommend The Things We Cannot Say.

I do have one minor "complaint" though. Rimmer is an Australian author. Alice and her family live in Winter Park, Florida. Some of the words used in Alice's story were Australian and not American English. Like bench for kitchen counter and lounge for couch. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel at all.