Armando Lucas Correa

Wow, this was a unique and explosive psychological thriller.
Leah has akinetopsia (motion blindness). She lives in NYC, and travels around the city. People don't realize that she can see, but not movement. Leah's other senses are heightened, esp. hearing and smell.
Alice moves next door, and Leah's life changes. She can hear Alice's conversations, and Alice's disagreements with her husband. Leah and Alice become friends, and Alice convinces Leah that the husband is abusive. One night, Leah show more wakes to smell bergamot, and is sure she is danger, and is wary of those with that smell. Leah likes Mark from the bookstore, and hopes for a relationship.
I didn't see the twists but did have questions early on - so the twists made sense. Well done - I will look for more from this author! show less

Interesting psychological suspense.

Leah has an unusual neurological condition known as akinetopsia. She is unable to see movement. She, on her own now that her mother has died, lives in Manhattan in a lovely pre-war apartment with only her elderly companion, Antonia, and some equally old neighbors as friends. Then Alice moves into the apartment next door. Since Leah's other senses are heightened, she can smell and hear the fear that Alice is experiencing and finds that Alice trying to escape show more and divorce an abusive husband. Leah feels and intuits things that others can't. She knows that Alice needs her help.

This was quite the novel and with Leah, an increasingly unreliable narrator, almost certainly delusional, the reader knows this is not going to end well. The twists to the climax came at a rapid pace and I could not put it down so read it all in a single sitting. I listened to the audiobook while following along in the ARC e-book provided by the publisher. The narrator did an excellent job voicing the characters and projecting just the right amount of drama into the story. Definitely a genre bender with an unusual premise that many will find very compelling. show less

PEARL RULED AT 33%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A young girl flees Nazi-occupied Germany with her family and best friend, only to discover that the overseas refuge they had been promised is an illusion in this “engrossing and heartbreaking” (Library Journal, starred review) debut novel, perfect for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Berlin, 1939. Before everything changed, Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life. But now the streets of Berlin are show more draped in ominous flags; her family’s fine possessions are hauled away; and they are no longer welcome in the places they once considered home. A glimmer of hope appears in the shape of the St. Louis, a transatlantic ocean liner promising Jews safe passage to Cuba. At first, the liner feels like a luxury, but as they travel, the circumstances of war change, and the ship that was to be their salvation seems likely to become their doom.

New York, 2014. On her twelfth birthday, Anna Rosen receives a mysterious package from an unknown relative in Cuba, her great-aunt Hannah. Its contents inspire Anna and her mother to travel to Havana to learn the truth about their family’s mysterious and tragic past.

Weaving dual time frames, and based on a true story, The German Girl is a beautifully written and deeply poignant story about generations of exiles seeking a place to call home.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Between Grandma's Sèvres, Mama's perfume, and meditating on whether or not tulips grow in Cuba, I realized I am not the right reader for this book. I know it's a powerful story to some, a hymn to survival, a way of assuring themselves their identity politics are Right, but I'm really over...as in Over and Out, redundantly repeating myself for emphasis...with plucky Jewish girls escaping/surviving the the Holocaust. Most did not. Find something new to say about it or I'll ignore you henceforth.

Cue the religious nuts calling me either anti-semitic and/or misogynistic for good measure of my doneness with these stories.

Atria Books asks $12.99 for an ebook, if you're still looking for this kind of story. It's an okay iteration of it, not more. show less

A suspenseful story written by an author of historical fiction books.

Since childhood, Leah suffered from a rare neurological disease called akinetopsia. People thought she was blind, but she saw more than they thought. When her new neighbor moved next door, Leah's life changed significantly. She heard her neighbor crying and arguing on the phone. Alice was going through a difficult divorce from her abusive husband, and Leah was worried about her new friend. When an intruder entered Leah's show more room one night while she was sleeping, she became concerned that she, too, was in danger. The intruder smelled of bergamot, the same scent she smelled in her neighbor's apartment a few days later.

When I read the summary of this book, I was immediately intrigued by the topic of rare neurological disease. At the same time, I was skeptical about reading a suspenseful thriller written by an author of historical novels.

Saying that, I liked this story. Leah was a young woman who lived alone in an apartment. She couldn't see movements, but her hearing and sense of smell were very acute. She was always on guard, always suspicious and afraid. I was amazed by her independence, but I was still concerned about her well-being.

Correa presented an interesting and suspenseful story of a woman suffering from motion blindness. There is no room for imaginary conclusions here. The author used a perfect plot twist to end the story. show less