Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: A Castle in Brooklyn: A Novel

Top positive review

a great read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 5, 2023

This book at first felt quite grim but it definitely got better. Luckily it was not a really difficult read as it was easy to continue reading long enough for it to end up inspiring and a happy ending!

Top critical review

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Evalina

It was not a bad read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 28, 2022

The book was quite sappy and predictable …. The writer was competent, the reader was very good but the story was slow which is ok if you like that kind of thing. For me it was just something to finish

8,875 total ratings, 241 with reviews

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From Canada

Leslie Bethmann

a great read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 5, 2023

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Amazon Customer

Beautiful language read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 20, 2023

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I love the depth of some of the wording in this book. Not to deep to understand but words that are colourful. This book has many tragic stories in it but I stopped from feeling to sad when the book found new joyful stories to keep me interested. From redeveloped friendships and new family relations!

An overall fantastic read!

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Nicole

Riveting!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 22, 2023

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Just read it. You'll see for yourself. This book is more than a story. It is an inspiration for family, true loyalty, and survival.

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G H

Sure to keep you reading

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 13, 2023

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This book has a great plot. The strength of friendship and lives lived comes through. A beautiful story with an unexpected end.

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Peggy

couldn’t put it down

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 6, 2023

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I loved this story. How it all was interconnected.
How it all worked out in the end. The sad and the happy.

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Evalina

It was not a bad read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 28, 2022

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canadianreader

Beautifully constructed story!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 3, 2023

Shirley Russak Wachtel’s debut novel, A Castle In Brooklyn, is a beautifully constructed story following two young men, Salman and Jacob, across six decades from Poland to America. She reveals how the experience in their teens with the Nazis influenced almost every aspect of their future.

I appreciated the reminder that their survival, both present and future, depended on their honesty and trust in each other. In addition to an examination of what makes a house a home and what constitutes ‘family,’ I also appreciated her focus on what ‘being there’ for another really entails. If we aren’t willing to unpack the baggage and deal with the fallout, we aren’t really a support for a needy friend.

While the beginning was focused and compelling, the narrative slowly meandered through the following decades and my interest waned slightly along the way. Regardless, this is a heartfelt debut story about the weaving together of dreams, disappointments, and three hearts.

I was gifted this copy by Little A and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

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Lindsay Wincherauk

The first chapter was riveting.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 26, 2023

The first chapter was riveting. And then…

They built a house. A family grows. A child dies. Friendships are destroyed.

Infidelity. Racism. Other stuff.

Who are these characters? Why are they here?

Someone from Japan enters the story. People keep dying. Stories lay unresolved. The characters become pedantic. The house’s new tenants rearrange the furniture. A jogger runs by with water bottles, hugging their thigh (or something like that). A nosey neighbour.

Another page. Introspection. Two vehicles collide.

And then…

It’s been 10 years since 9/11 - was mentioned; so is Aids.

Why is 9/11 mentioned?

Back to the Vehicles Colliding

The last thing he saw was MERCURY.

If it was the last thing he saw, how do we find out?

Someone smokes weed, or does heroin, or cocaine, or…

I’m being mean.

I’m confused. No, I’m not.

I read the acknowledgments.

I rarely read the acknowledgments.

Writing is hard.

The book’s layout is good.

WRITTEN: 26 Feb 2023

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From other countries

Paula

Worth reading

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 4, 2023

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There were many features of this book that I enjoyed very much. I am reasonably well read in this genre, and there was an air of authenticity throughout. The author wove a background mood that was a fine blend of dark, indelible memory; goal-driven striving; inexhaustible hope; and loyal love and friendship. The first chapter was masterful, in my opinion: a well crafted hook that struck a resonant chord for me.

I liked the way the story line wound through many characters’ perspectives without actually shifting narrator voice. The author had a deft touch with that. I felt like the proverbial fly on many walls without ever feeling a strong, jolting shift. Nice!

Something else that struck me well as I read as the feeling I was getting a peek into a side of male tenderness that we don’t often encounter. The main male characters’ inner thoughts are all explored gently and expressed clearly and frankly. The author did some terrific work in that vein, and I find myself thinking about the men and boys even though I finished the book days ago. I think I will remember them for a long time.

A couple of “I wish you hadn’t done thats” though:

The section that plopped a family from Georgia into the middle of the story was truly bad. The characters were unsavory, their actions were ugly, and the later erasure of their clearly destructive act at the end of their section goes unexplained. It’s like the author found a weird thread, tried to weave it in, decided to abandon it and then forgot to come pull it out later. Ugh. And the inclusion of a totally improbable connection to the main plot was in sharp contrast to the aforementioned authenticity of the tale. The book would lose nothing and gain a bit by that part being omitted. Please.

The time spent on that chapter would have been better spent flushing out a lead-up to the way the story ended. As it is, I closed the book semi-happy with the closure, but mostly feeling like the author had remembered she had somewhere else to be and needed to hurry up and just get this off to the editor.

It’s a good story, and I found it worth reading. I will be on the lookout for more by this writer.

17 people found this helpful

Marlys

A wonderful story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 17, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book is nice because although it begins during the Holocaust, it is not another book about the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. But rather focuses on future hopes, dreams, loves and losses for several generations after the Holocaust. The characters and settings are lovely and relatable. It is a warm, tender loving tale, woven around a friendship between two boys, and a special house. I LOVE that it was the author’s first published book. Congratulations to her on realizing her own dream. A very compelling story.

One person found this helpful

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5 star		37%
4 star		34%
3 star		20%
2 star		6%
1 star		3%

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A Castle in Brooklyn: A Novel

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A Castle in Brooklyn: A Novel

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