Not Just Another Love Story
During the school year, I find that I religiously avoid thick books. I think it is because I don’t want to set myself up for failure. Or maybe it’s because when I find time to read for pleasure during the demands of September through June, I want to be able to finish a book quickly so I can then look at it and think, “I’ve accomplished something! Those essays may still be waiting…but LOOK! I finished a BOOK!” This thought process changes during the summer- or it at least evolves. From mid June through August, bring on the paperweights! During these months, I can look at the girth of my selections and feel EXTRA proud that I finished them.
Where is all this going, you may wonder: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. The book is primarily about protagonist Andras Levi and his complicated love affair with older woman Klara, but in the process of reading about their struggle to find happiness together, the reader also learns about the plight of Hungarian Jews during World War II. In the beginning of the book, Andras is fulfilling a life-long dream of becoming an architectural student in Paris, where he meets and falls in love with Klara, a Hungarian ballet teacher with a dark past. The impending war forces him to return to Hungary, where he is forced to enlist. The book truly creates these characters, making the reader emotionally connected to them and I found myself rooting for all of their survival, even while I knew it would not be possible. I will admit that at times, I found myself tempted to skim ahead, but it was because I wanted so desperately to know how it would turn out for these people Orringer had made me care about. When I finally closed the back cover, I was left very satisfied with how Orringer had looped the book from beginning to end, and I even learned a few things in the process.
