This is the first book from this author that did not completely knock it out of the park for me. I still think that she did an excellent job with the narrative. This particular story, though, had a pretty big hill to climb. This book is set in Amsterdam during Nazi occupation just at the start of the forced relocation of Dutch Jews. I have read – and found an all-time favorite book set at that same time and in that same place, The Girl in
the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse. I could not help comparing the two while I read. In this book, the main character, and her father, are artists with a gallery. Her father can no longer support them (I forget why) so the main character resorts to selling a forged painting to a German soldier to pay rent although she ends up enmeshed in a scheme to smuggle out as many Jewish babies and small children as possible with the help and additional risk of a deserting German soldier. Cameron does what she does best in this narrative, exploring moral nuances through unenviable dilemmas. However, I do not think that this is a YA novel. Most of the characters are 18 or older and some of the scenes/scenarios that the main character finds herself in lean much more to the adult experience. The text itself I believe a bit too advanced for most YA readers. On these fronts as well as the ability to empathize with a morally gray main character, The Girl in the Blue Coat does it much better.
I always appreciate the ability to learn from someone else as they tell their story as the author does in this graphic memoir. I also tend to recommend these books to my students as well as stock my classroom shelves with them. This one is no exception. The author tells his immigration story with most of the focus on his childhood and middle grade years although the later portions include a section from high school
and then his later adult years when he finally became a naturalize citizen. I think this story was well told although I wish the author had given a little bit of transition between the high school section and the adult section because I found myself a little bit confused and know that others might be as well.
Although, as I have mentioned in other reviews of memoirs, that I tend to recommend memoirs fairly highly, I do not necessarily recommend them to all audiences, like with this one. I do not think that this book should have been chosen for a YA audience. Yes, it provides much needed representation – in this case of a queer, Muslim, immigrant woman – most of the narrative focuses on her time at the end of
high school and in college, more befitting of a new adult or adult age range. She also uses a heavily retrospective voice, clearly reflecting back on her life from the lens of the middle age woman she is. I find no fault in that. I point it out to say that this sort of tone will likely struggle to hold the attention of a younger audience. This is, however, still a much needed story which I do recommend to anyone in the new adult or adult range of readers.
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