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Blood Lie, The: A Novel (2013)

by Shirley Reva Vernick(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1280871709 (ISBN13: 9781280871702)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Cinco Puntos Press

review 1: 3.5 stars. Interesting book, simplistically told.This is the true story of a child who went missing in 1928 Massena, NY. The search quickly devolved in an anti-semitic witch hunt. A Jewish boy was accused of killing the girl as a blood sacrifice for a Jewish religious holiday.This is a great book for the middle grades. It's a book that teachers will love to use in the classroom because there is ample opportunity for connections to non-fiction texts and sociological developments. But it is not a book that will cause kids to love books or love reading. There is nothing to really grab the reader.
review 2: The synopsis above essentially says it all. The Blood Lie is a rather short, extremely realistic, look at one Jewish boy's first look into what is now com... moremonly termed "Religisim". When Daisy goes missing the townspeople look for someone to blame, and Jack becomes their target. Jack is shown that his religion can trigger people to hate him and it changes his whole perception of life.What I did enjoy about Shirley Reva Vernick's take on these actual events is how innocent she shows Jack to really be. From the beginning of the story, his whole thought process is basically focused on Emaline and his music. Jack has big dreams. He hopes to remove himself from his tiny town. His thoughts are pure, and rather adorable at times. Then, when everything takes a turn for the worse, you can easily see how much it affects his psyche. Poor Jack. Just an innocent boy who is thrown into the middle of a blood libel.Everything else about The Blood Lie was pretty cut and dry though. It read less like Historical Fiction to me, and more like Non-Fiction. I know that Vernick obviously had to make Jack's character a lot more vivid than the original story would have. Still, there is very little to the story that is overly dramatic or exciting. It moves at a nice pace, slowly inching along to the end. When I got there I was a little underwhelmed. I'm glad I read this. It provided me with new knowledge. However I didn't feel anything besides that about this book.Truth be told this probably just wasn't a book geared for a reader like me. There is nothing wrong with the writing in The Blood Lie, or with the characters, or even with the pacing. It's just that the story is so realistic that it lost the wow factor that my fantasy based brain clings to. Therefore I still highly recommend this to others! If you like a realistic story line, if you are a fan of historically based books, this is one for you. less

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