Review: The Blood Years
The Blood Years by Elana K. Arnold Balzer + Bray (imprint of HarperCollins), 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Sarah Aronson Buy at Bookshop.org The Blood Years is a riveting, unputdownable story of love, loss, and family, based on the true experiences of Elana K. Arnold's grandmother's struggle to survive the Holocaust in Romania. Frederieke (Rieke) Teitler and her older sister, Astra, live with their grandfather and mother in wartime Romania. As the Russians and Nazis take over the city and persecute Jewish residents, Rieke experiences loss, rape, hunger, and illness, all while maintaining her hope that the sine wave that is life will shift in their favor. The source of hope is her grandfather, Opa, whose faith and resourcefulness holds them together even as fickle and selfish Astra, falling in love with a dashing philandering doctor, tests the strength of the family's fabric. Unlike in many books about the Holocaust, the family does not go to a concentration camp--bu