Simon Scharma observes, on the cover of the edition I read 'You don't so much read it as live it'. It's true. This is an immersive story, mainly set between about 1937 and 1945, about a Hungarian Jew, Andras, who spends time in Paris as a young architecture student, and meets the slightly older Hungarian widow who will become the love of his life. The story follows him as he returns home, and as Hungary becomes ever more implicated in the war. The story of the Jewish population in Hungary isn't well known in the UK. It's clear that while they were not, on the whole, sent to concentration camps, their conditions in the Labour Corps of the army - all that was open to Jewish men - were no better.

I coudn't leave this book till I had finished it. It's well written, and beautifully researched, though Orringer wears her learning lightly. I'll read more of her work. ( )

Overall, I liked this book, though it could have done with some editing. (758 pages) It's inspired by the authors family history; which I think made the details seem a bit too precious to her. The book is about a Hungarian Jewish family and starts in 1937. So the whole book is very stressful, you start of wanting to shake the main character, Andras, and tell him to leave the continent. (not that that was easy at that point, but he could have tried!) But he didn't have foresight and so instead goes to Paris, studies architecture, and falls in love with a ballet dancer with a backstory.

The depiction on 1937 Paris was interesting, and the plot involves a theater company, which is interesting. But of course, so stressful, and the Hungarian parts are more stressful still. ( )

Books about the Holocaust show us at our worse and our best. It's horrifying to read of the atrocities humans are capable of committing but it's also inspiring to read of the strength needed to survive those atrocities. What makes The The Invisible Bridge stand out for a lot of other Holocaust literature is that it's told from a point of view not often heard from; The Hungarian Jew. Hungary was an ally of Germany during World War Two but the Hungarian Jews were treated like animals and actually wished for Hitler's defeat. Sadly, when The Russians moved in and took over, it was a case of "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss" ( )

Julie Orringer has written a compelling story about two Hungarian Jewish families: one wealthy and one poor, whose lives become intertwined when two of them fall in love in late 1930's Paris despite a significant gap in age. Andras Levi is lucky enough to win a scholarship to study architecture in Paris, but funding disappears causing him to seek work from a fellow Hungarian in the theater. The female lead sets him up with the daughter of a friend, who is beastly, but Andras falls in love with the mother, Claire Morgenstern (a/k/a Klara Hasz), who has fled her native land. They are lots of secrets to be revealed in the 600 pages, and they return to Hungary when Andras' visa is revoked. Andras is then conscripted while the Jewish world in Europe is crumbling under the Third Reich. This reminded me a little of Follett's Fall of Giants, but it is focused on fewer people and character development, rather than explaining world events. ( )

You know that a book is good when the second you finish it you quickly make a list in your mind of the people you need to tell about it or buy copies for. I felt this way about The Invisible Bridge. I feel a duty to share Ms. Orringer's story of her family with mine. These stories must continue to be told and re-told so that we, especially those of us who were born and raised in the United States and have never seen the ravages of the Second World War, will never forget what happens when avarice and self interest take precedence over our sense humanity. ( )