For Such a Time - Kate Breslin

For Such a Time is meant to be a retelling of the story of Esther.  Hadassah, a Jew, is taken in by Aric, the leader of a concentration camp during WWII and given a job as his secretary.  She uses her skills and influence to do what she can for her people and tries to fight her attraction to Aric.  He's the enemy after all.

As time goes by, Hadassah's secrets become harder to hide.  She finds herself torn between how she feels about Aric and how she feels about her people.  She becomes attached to a small boy and has to stay out of the way of the cruel captain.

Granted, this was not the best choice for me to read around Christmas.  My timing only amplified the negative aspects of the story, and there are a lot of them.  I mean, we are talking about a concentration camp.  Nothing good happened at those.  Even at the end of the story, the war isn't over.  I guess I'm supposed to come up with my own ending of what happens after the war, but it was just too depressing and I wanted it to be over.

The book is well written, it's just the subject matter was a turn off for me.  I need glimpses of hope throughout a book to feel the satisfaction of a happy ending.  With this story, I didn't see how it would work, and the ending didn't help.  In the end, I just wasn't overly fond of it.