The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman– 367 pages
Book Blurb:
Bloom where you’re planted,” is the advice Christine Bolz receives from her beloved Oma. But seventeen-year-old domestic Christine knows there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It’s a world she’s begun to glimpse through music, books—and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for. Yet the future she and Isaac dream of sharing faces greater challenges than their difference in stations. In the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler’s regime. Anti-Jewish posters are everywhere, dissenting talk is silenced, and a new law forbids Christine from returning to her job—and from having any relationship with Isaac. In the months and years that follow, Christine will confront the Gestapo’s wrath and the horrors of Dachau, desperate to be with the man she loves, to survive—and finally, to speak out.
My Review: 4 stars
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The Plum Tree is Wiseman’s first novel which I read because of how much I enjoyed her second book What She Left Behind. The books are quite different and both very good and interestingly, I can see how her writing improved from book one to book two.
I really liked The Plum Tree but not until after the first quarter to first third. There was so much descriptive detail and redundancy at the beginning I was getting anxious for the story to start. Once it did however, the story kept me completely sucked in.
Learning about and living in war torn Germany through the eyes of an anti-Nazi German girl was a great POV. That, coupled with her forbidden romance with her Jewish employer’s son, led to a satisfying read. Sadly, I had to simply accept that they were in love, as this reader didn’t feel the connection from the start. When I put that aside though, it worked for me. Hope, hard work, honesty and doing what is right were themes throughout the book.
I recommend this book for readers who enjoy books relating to ww2, Holocaust and romance.
Quotes I liked:
I want you to understand something. War makes perpetrators of some, criminals of others, and victims of everyone. Just because a soldier is in the battle, doesn’t mean that he believes in the war.”
– “There’s a time for everything, you know. A time for work, a time for play, a time for worry, and a time for rest. Right now, enjoy this time with your family. We never know what tomorrow brings.”
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