Sixteen-year-old Noa, forced to give up her baby fathered by a Nazi soldier, snatches a child from a boxcar containing Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and takes refuge with a traveling circus, where Astrid, a Jewish aerialist, becomes her mentor.
Loved this — it’s a unique perspective on WWII involving a circus and is a moving take on how small acts of bravery and rebellion can actually have long-lasting and compelling effects (an especially important message, perhaps, in this day and age). I loved the circus setting and I’ve harboured an interest in trying the trapeze for quite a long time so Noa’s story about learning to fly on the trapeze in order to save herself and the child in her charge was of particular fascination for me. My one nitpick is I felt I could sometimes be pulled out of the story a bit by some awkward phrasing when Jenoff was expressing the main characters’ thoughts, but this is really a tiny nitpick and this was a 4.5 star read for me. Would 100% recommend to fans of historical fiction and, in particular, those who enjoy WWII narratives.
