Review: Where Butterflies Go by Debra Doxer

Where Butterflies Go

Author: Debra Doxer 

Published: October 7th 2010

Source: Received from Netgalley

Format: eARC

Purchase: Amazon, TBD, B&N

From Goodreads

Meira Sokolow had the misfortune of being born to Jewish parents in Warsaw, Poland, in 1912. Before she took her first breath, her fate had been sealed.

Residing in the Jewish Quarter of the city, Meira’s early life was typical. She fell in love with a local boy, got married, and had a daughter. Then the German army marched into Warsaw and everything changed. Forced into the ghetto with her family, she found survival to be a daily struggle. Hunger, disease, and unimaginable cruelty were her stark realities. When the ghetto was purged and she was sent to a concentration camp, Meira still had her family, and that was all that mattered. Then the camp was liquidated, and only a handful of survivors remained out of thousands. Meira Sokolow was one of them.

No longer a wife or mother, Meira emigrated to New York City. After World War II, the world wanted to move on and start a new chapter, but Meira couldn’t turn the page so easily. She walked through her days alone, like a ghost with nothing to tether her to the earth. Then she met Max, a handsome American, who first mistook her for one of the boring socialites he encountered every day. He soon learned she was unlike anyone he had met before, seeing her strength and resilience, even when she couldn’t. Max knew he could breathe life into her again, if only she would let him.

Where Butterflies Go is based on the harrowing true story of one woman’s survival during the Nazi occupation of Poland, and her struggle to find meaning in the aftermath.

My Review

"Sometimes I imagine a fragile thread is all that connects us to everything else. That thread can bend and overlap in places, or it can unravel and give way. As forces pull on it, you can try to hold on, but once it's broken, that piece of thread can't be mended. All you can do is take hold of another thread or let yourself drift alone, untethered to the world around you."

I wish that this review could quite convey half the emotion this book made me feel. 

I often apply for eARCs online and I won't hide! Half the time they don't give me much if not the pride and satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping an emerging author. But this book was on a whole 'nother level. This didn't feel like a book from an emerging author, this was by all means a story with a great power, such as that of Kristin Hanna's The Nightingale, which is one of my favorite of the genre. 

Let's start by saying that the fact that it was a Historical Romance was already a thumb-up for me. I love the genre and I find it impossible not to get touched by books that are set in specific historical context such as WW2. But it's not easy to write about such topics. You have to have a certain sensitivity in order to portay certain pictures and convey important messages without being too harsh or too soft. I really liked how the author decided to narrate Meira's experience of the occupation: at first, I though it was too fast-paced and that it deserved more focus. But then I probably understood the decision: the days were all the same. You have gaps of years that do not need to be recounted because what the characters were living was just a routine of horrors and injustices. The escalation of horror our protagonist had to endure was heart-breaking until we reach a climax of harshness and cruelty that I was not expecting but that it totally serves to smash the truth into the reader's face.

And that's what Meira will learn to do: to narrate her story, to keep telling the truth no matter how harsh it is because certain atrocities can not be forgotten. I loved how the book can be divided into Meira's experience of the war and her attempt at starting a new life. I believe it is a point of view not often explored as most books I've read just center around the historical events and not on how the war might have impacted the survivors and their chance at a new beginning.  It was wrenching and emotional to follow Meira through her struggles and to see how much courage it takes to push the past aside and start living again. I found it incredibly relatable how Meira's rebirth does not come from her forgetting her family - as Esther seemed to do! - but how she managed to find a way to honour her family despite her willingness to start over: it made me feel so much closer to the character and more supportive of her choices. 

Another detail that I particularly enjoyed is how the author managed to pull all the narrative threads together. It happens often that a novel brings out topics or sub-stories that in the end are left aside, but this does not happen with Debra Doxer: every bit of the story mentioned, find its conclusion in the end.. sometimes in unexpected ways! I was completely taken aback by a couple twists that the author brings out in the end and that I though were a really ingenious and touching way to bring closure to Meira's story. So, if by the end of the book I was already reading through heavy tears, you can imagine what my state was when I learned that the beautifully narrated story was based on the true life of the author's great-aunt!

So for those of you who like historical romances just like I do and for those who want to read a touching testimony of a war's survivor, you should definitely read this great novel, full of historical facts, everyday struggles and deep with emotions!

Rated 4.5