Orphan #8: A Novel

by Kim van Alkemade

In this stunning new historical novel inspired by true events, Kim van Alkemade tells the fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York City Jewish orphanage years before. In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had. Though Rachel believes she's shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan's Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing.
But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person's fate-to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals-is not always set in stone. Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

• ISBN10: 0062338307
• ISBN13: 9780062338303
• Publish Date: 10 September 2015 (first published 4 August 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 5 April 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

8 Reasons not to Adopt Orphan  number 8

1.  The author draws you in with shock and awe plot twists such as, the reason why Rachel and her brother were put in an orphanage.  However, once the shock has disappeared there is little left to keep one reading on.


2. Rachel's reminiscences grow repetitive and long-winded. and because of the continuous rehash of the abuse of x-rays that the book becomes tedious with a need to move the story along.


3. I felt the author was trying to garner sympathy or compassion for Rachel's plight.  Unfortunately, I only felt annoyance due to the lack of development in her character and inability to take action


4. A strong section of the book is devoted to Rachel's relationship with her long-term girlfriend.  I don't have a problem with that, but I felt it was a sub-plot that did not add to the story and merely wasted paper.


5. The scenes between Rachel and Dr Solomon were much too short and wished they had shed more light on the doctor who preformed these experiments as I think it would have greatly enhanced the development of her character.


6. A good historical fiction novel usually leads me to research the subject and see how much was fact and I felt no need to do this at the novel's end.  I felt the author said all that needed to be said which in the case was a deterrent.


7. Another pointless sub-plot was between Rachel and her uncle who she lives with after leaving the orphanage.  On his side it develops into a romance and just felt icky.  I was relieved that Kim van-Alkemade decided to kick that one in the butt but, by doing so I didn't understand the point of including it in the first place.


8. The ending was anti-climatic.  With all the build-up to Dr Solomon's death it created an "Oh that's it" conclusion.

This review was originally posted on First Impressions Reviews