Monday 31 August 2015

The Other Me - Saskia Sarginson


Eliza Bennet has the life she's always dreamed of. She's who she wants to be, and she's with the man she loves.
But Eliza is living a lie. Her real name is Klaudia Myer. And Klaudia is on the run. She's escaping her old life, and a terrible secret buried at the heart of her family.
This is the story of Eliza and Klaudia - one girl, two lives and a lie they cannot hide from.

What did I think?

I found this really interesting and it's no wonder that Klaudia is so mixed up with all of the secrets hidden within her family!

I enjoyed the story of Otto and Ernst Meyer - two German brothers who didn't know their parents and immediately sign up for the Hitler Youth in order to feel accepted and part of a family.  As their stories unfold we see how deeply the actions of ancestors can affect their descendants.  Klaudia feels more guilt for their actions than her Dad and Uncle do - mainly due to the fact that nobody spoke about their actions, so Klaudia thought the worst and thought it was something to be ashamed of.

It is due to this buried guilt that Klaudia reinvents herself as Eliza Bennet.  She has so many issues that my head was spinning unlike Eliza on stage - she is a ballet dancer who suffers from stagefright.  Her problems really multiply when she meets and falls in love with Cosmo - his grandmother is a holocaust survivor and Eliza feels she has no alternative but to end things with Cosmo.  Despite the silly name, I was rooting for him!

A really interesting book about family secrets with some disturbing final scenes.  A great psychological read examining the effect of the sins of the father.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Little Brown, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:



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