Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Tamar by Mal Peet

I can't decide if I liked Tamar or not. I liked the story, and I like the subject matter, but the book just seemed to drag. It took me a couple of weeks to read, and I didn't feel overly compelled to pick it up instead of, say, knitting. That's my current gauge. If I'm really enjoying the book, I will choose to read instead of knit. If the book is just so-so, I will often choose to knit instead. I got a lot of knitting/crocheting done while reading this book.

Tamar bounces back and forth between the present and 1944/1945 and between two characters with the name Tamar. One character is the narrator, a young woman recounting the story of her grandfather's death and the process of trying to figure out a puzzle he left her when he died. The other character was a resistance fighter in the Netherlands during World War II. The stories are intertwined, as the girl Tamar was named by her grandfather, in honor of his experiences in the war. Both story lines are compelling, and the mystery revealed wasn't a dead giveaway. Still, I felt there was something missing, something that could have made the book impossible to put down. I would definitely recommend it for someone interested in the Dutch resistance or WWII history, in general.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least you finish a book! Many books. I stall in the middle off good books. Many good books ...

Debi said...

Hey...you should post pictures of what you got knitted/crocheted during each book!

Somer said...

I love this idea, Debi! It would help explain my lack of blog posts, that's for sure!

Lisa said...

I know exactly what you mean about using other things as a gauge when reading. I also knit when a book is not quite doing it for me.

Somer said...

As much as I love reading, it is sometimes hard to choose which I want to do more - knit or read!