Flasks and Fiction

Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey My rating: 4 of 5 stars By chance, Sarah crosses paths with lonely and mistreated 5 year-old Emma at the airport. Sarah is upset by how the girls parents treat her but doesn’t know what she can do to help. It isn’t until she sees Emma by coincidence a few weeks later that she impulsively decides to save her from her parents. As Sarah runs with Emma, Emma’s mother, Amy, struggles with whether she even really wants her daughter back. I had never truly considered what I would do when faced with an abused child until reading Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey. Obviously, I would not kidnap them, but would I walk away? Call child services? Sarah’s gut reaction felt relatable, and her ability to pull off be kidnapping actually seemed plausible for the most part. The action moved quickly, and I loved getting to know Sarah and Emma. I felt that Amy, though, was very one-note. I would’ve liked to feel a little internal conflict as to whether she deserved to raise ...

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer My rating: 5 of 5 stars “He he a strange sensation of not knowing who he was, of having traveled off the map of his own existence.” The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer was a book I definitely expected to like but I didn’t expect to devour it in just 2.5 days. Andras, a Hungarian Jewish architecture student, sets out for Paris in 1937 to begin his studies. He settles into a happy life, making friends and meeting his future wife. As violence escalates in Europe Andras is forced to return to Hungary and try his best to keep himself and his family alive. This was a very touching novel about life during WWII. I’ve read a lot of fiction set during the war but none that took place in Hungary. Not only did I learn a lot, but I felt attached to the fate of every character in this book, which is unusual for me. Even the secondary and tertiary characters were well rounded and their trials occasionally brought tears to me eyes. This was a long book...