Representation: Asian characters
Trigger warnings: Near-death experiences, antisemitism, grief and loss depiction, physical assault, death of a husband and parents, gun violence, military violence and war themes, World War II
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

I wanted to read this for a while but after I found it in one of the two libraries I go to I finally picked it up and read it. When I finished it I had so many thoughts going on inside my head, for starters it's what would be best described as emotionally impactful but at the same time the characters weren't the best. That doesn't take away from the fact that the story was enjoyable. It starts with the main character Ruben whose last name I don't even know living in Paris during the 1940s, that's a terrible time to live in. Even more so because of his religion (and especially all the antisemitism going on) he is forced to hide in a building for now and pretend to be a different religion; he even got fake papers to hide his identity so no one would notice it. In the opening pages the scheme works at first until the Germans come in, stop the charade and forced Ruben to escape to somewhere else. I know Ruben's sister is gone for now and the book said someone called the Fox was going to rescue him but they never came for some reason. All Ruben has for company are some other characters who share the same mission which takes place throughout the middle section of the novel. The ending was bittersweet when Ruben reunited with his sister Rosa but unfortunately their parents didn't make it. It was nice to get some semblance of closure there but it would've been more impactful if it didn't feel like the author was rushing to finish the story off and if the characters were more well written. ( )

Lovely story about how the Muslim people sheltered Jewish children in their mosques when the Nazis were rounding up the Jews prior to the Holocaust. In this story, 11 year old Ruben becomes Abdul Azim and learns Arabic and how to act, pray and eat like an Islamic child should the Nazis ever raid the mosque looking for Jewish children. Gripping story based on real life happenings that also looks at the underground movements that existed to shelter and move Jews from the most deadly spots in Europe during World War 2. ( )