Now a New York Times bestseller!From the author of Truths I Never Told You, Before I Let You Go, and the upcoming The Warsaw Orphan, Kelly Rimmer’s powerful WWII novel follows a woman’s urgent search for answers to a family mystery that uncovers truths about herself that she never expected.“Kelly Rimmer has outdone herself. I thought that Before I Let You Go was one of the best novels I had ever … herself that she never expected.
“Kelly Rimmer has outdone herself. I thought that Before I Let You Go was one of the best novels I had ever read…If you only have time to read one book this year The Things We Cannot Say should be that book. Keep tissues handy.”—Fresh Fiction
“Fans of The Nightingale and Lilac Girls will adore The Things We Cannot Say.” —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author
In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate.
Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.
Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.
Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s new and unforgettable novel, The Warsaw Orphan.
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In The Things We Cannot Say, Kelly Rimmer deftly weaves together the narratives of Alina, a young woman struggling to survive the Second World War in Poland and Alice, a mother and wife juggling the intergenerational complexities of modern family. Their stories converge when Alice undertakes a journey to uncover the secrets of her dying grandmother’s past. Fans of The Nightingale and Lilac Girls will adore The Things We Cannot Say, a poetic and unforgettable tale of the past that is always with us, the truth that sets us free and the long journey home.
I generally avoid Nazi-related plots. Having been born at the war’s end to a Jewish family in America, I recall horrified whispers about the atrocities perpetrated in occupied Europe. Thanks to these whispers, the war was deeply embedded in my DNA. I knew more than I wanted to know without having to read books.
I bought THE THINGS WE CANNOT SAY solely because a good friend, a fellow Audible devotee, recommended it highly. And she was right. It is excellent. Focusing on the plight of the Polish people as the Nazis took over their country, the story goes back and forth between that of a young Polish girl living through those years, and that of a young American woman whose Polish-born grandmother, suddenly silenced by a stroke, needs to speak, finally, about truths that family does not know.
In an interesting parallel arc, the American mom has a severely-autistic 7-year-old son. As his primary caretaker, she keeps his life strictly regimented. This has taken a huge toll on her marriage.
The boy can only communicate through an iPad app. Turns out, his beloved great-grandmother, our Polish-born stroke victim, learns to communicate through the same app – and what she says leads to revelations for them all.
THE THINGS WE CANNOT SAY is only ostensibly about the barbarity of the Nazi invaders. Deeper down, it is about family and loyalty, dedication to a greater cause, and all that we give up and gain for those we love.
And the title? My own family, though so far from Europe, could barely speak about the obscenities committed by Hitler in the name of ensuring racial purity.
Ensuring racial purity. And doesn’t that have painful meaning in today’s political climate?
A recent study found that a fifth – that’s a horrifying 20% – of young Americans either have never heard of the Holocaust or do not know what it entailed. For this reason alone, the spate of World War II books is a good thing.
THE THINGS WE CANNOT SAY is a valuable addition.
Kelly Rimmer has raised the already high bar with this unforgettable novel. It is that rare author that takes the reader so deeply into a world that you smell the smells, feel the hunger, see the devastation…and the lengths we will go to for the ones we love. Fans of Jodi Picoult and Kristin Hannah now have a new go-to author.
Favorite Quotes:
There was nothing to bury, no body to conduct a service over. Instead, we heard that he was gone, and that was that… Nothing had changed, except that nothing was the same anymore, because once I had two brothers, and now I had one… Our oppression was loss without reason, and pain without a purpose.
I didn’t yet understand the horrific depths of the evil of the Nazi agenda— but somehow in the moonlight that night, I felt the loss of humanity, a very pause in the heartbeat of our shared existence on this planet.
War breaks us down to nothing more than our most selfish will to survive— but when we rise above that instinct, miracles can still happen.
Life has a way of shattering our expectations, of leaving our hopes in pieces without explanation. But when there’s love in a family, the fragments left behind from our shattered dreams can always be pulled together again, even if the end result is a mosaic.
My Review:
This captivating tale was my introduction to the breathtaking storytelling of Kelly Rimmer, and it was an exceptional and epic experience. I was immediately embroiled in the vastly different situations and timelines that consumed and defined Alice and Alina’s worlds, with each storyline cast with curiously and uniquely fascinating characters and circumstances.
The writing was craftily emotive, intriguing, and devastating. I was well and fully hooked and sat riveted to my Kindle while alternating between cringing, sighing, and occasionally gasping and gulping past the hot rocks in my throat. I was wrecked, gutted, and burning with indignation over the well-orchestrated and demonic cruelty perpetrated by the Nazis as a whole and at the individual level.
I cannot begin to imagine the massive amount of research involved to pull all the various historic and profoundly complicated elements together. However, I am even more impressed and completely awed by the elegance and mastery in finessing such a poignant and thoughtfully compelling narrative among the ghastly backdrop of occupied Poland in Alina’s timeline, as well as the emotional challenges and troublesome issues of dealing with a beloved dying family member on top of the harried day to day considerations involved in caring for the specialized needs of a child on the autism spectrum in Alice’s timeline. Ms. Rimmer’s original premise and intensely engaging storylines were brilliantly crafted and flawlessly executed. She has just acquired a rabid fangirl, for life.
The Things We Cannot Say was a rich, emotional tale of a Polish family’s struggles during WWII. The story alternated between past and present, and was beautifully written. I highly recommend this novel for fans of historical fiction.
Kelly Rimmer (author) has taken me on a ride I thought I would not experience again so soon after having read “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. “The Things We Cannot Say” is an emotional journey down two separate time lines. Kelly does a marvelous job of building a world so complete it was hard for me not to engage all my senses in enjoying the book.
I was a little apprehensive at the start with the two time lines, remembering the hard time I had at the start of King’s “IT”, with great relief I found this to be an easier more engaging start. The story moves smoothly chapter to chapter never becoming confusing or too bogged down in details.
The one thing that impressed me the most was that through the pain, loss and destruction there is an underlying sense of love and hope that carries the reader through the story.
As well as being a great historical fiction, “The Things We Cannot Say” takes the time to show/remind us of the effects of war long after it has finished.
It is difficult to put into words all my thoughts and emotions after finishing “The Things We Cannot Say” by Kelly Rimmer. It is a story of tragedy, yes. But also a description of true love and sacrifice. I will never tire of WWII novels because of anecdotal stories of heroism and kindnesses people did for each other while so much evil was being unleashed in the world at that time. Thank you, Kelly. I will be reading more of your novels no matter the subject matter because you are able to make me feel deeply about whatever it is.
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer touched me so profoundly I will never forget the story.
The novel’s chapters switch between the past and the present.
Alina, the narrator of the past, told in great detail the hardships and courage it took for people to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland. With each turn of the page, I felt Alina’s hope, desperation, sorrow, and fear. The love Alina and Thomaz shared was incredible and selfless.
Alice, the narrator of the present, and granddaughter of Alina told of the challenges she faced with raising her son with autism and maintaining a healthy family structure for her daughter. She, too, made me feel the love she had for her children, husband, and grandmother. But also the anger and frustration she felt toward Wade, her husband, for not connecting with their son.
When Alina sent Alice on a quest back to Poland, my heart pounded with the mysteries Alice unraveled for her grandmother.
Throughout the novel, I cried and desperately wanted a happy ending for Alina, Thomaz, Saul, Alice, and Wade. I found the last few chapters of the book emotionally intense. Five stars!
Brilliant plot, well told. Confused at first, I quickly was drawn into the mystery. Who is Hanna? I was almost 70% into the book before I started to figure it out. The granddaughter-searching-for-answers-about-the-grandmother thing, yet again, but very well done, completely captivating. The english-speaking grandmother who now can only understand Polish is a bit far-fetched, but adds so well to the narrative. Love story, history, mystery. The right combination. And so beautifully written.
This is the first book by Kelly Rimmer that I have read. She writes a good story, about a time and place I know of – Poland during WWII. The book is historical fiction, the primary story arc is a love story centered around the theme of family and unknown stories. I give it five stars because I read it in a day, so it held my attention. The theme of Poland is backdrop and setting. The author paints a good picture of the time and touches on the complexities of personal choices made during war. What caught me was the Epilogue. Rimmer herself is Polish, and traced back her roots to Trzebinia, Poland where this story also takes place. I respect the author spent time in Poland, and energy in research to get her facts right. In the end she includes a few pictures from her trip to Trzebinia. I struggled to like the modern-day character, Alice, through whose voice we discover the past. She’s quite unlikeable, but then, what’s a story without conflict throughout?
My favorite reads weave together fascinating events from the past with modern characters I love—this book certainly does so, and does it brilliantly. Hard to put down.
Alina marries Tomasz in 1942, and her story unfolds to show that getting to that day is not what it seemed. For Alina is a young peasant woman in Poland, which of course was savagely overrun by the Nazis and later by the Soviets from the other direction. Alina’s first person account captures the community’s sense of nonchalance during the build up to war, which turns to shock as the Nazis quickly bomb then capture Alina’s region in a steely efficient grip. Alina’s family is involved in some of the most moving portrayals of Nazi atrocities I’ve read. Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of the story, for me, is how Ms. Rimmer examines a war survivor’s reluctance to speak of war-time experiences. Without question, untold scores of remarkable WW1 and WW2 experiences were lost to history when soldiers and civilian survivors kept them buried deep inside and just couldn’t open up to family. Alina’s amazing story is revealed through her death-bed exchanges with granddaughter Alice, whose dogged determination to pursue family truths when the walls seem to be caving in on her is memorable. The bonus in this fine historical is a very convincing rendering of tensions in the modern marriage when the home manager and bread-winner spouses fail to appreciate or value the other’s contribution.
Was this review helpful? I am an avid world war based fiction reader and author. You can read more of my takes at https://brodiecurtis.com/curtis-takes/.
The Things We Cannot Say is the second book of Rimmer’s I’ve had the privilege of reading. Once again I am transported into another time. Completely immersed and unable to put it down. Past and present converge making this such a beautifully heartbreaking read. Truly, I needed a case of tissues. Two woman, two different decades, two ways to find hope and discover what the soul is capable of. Honestly I was blown away.
Interesting topic, well-written, amazing presentation.
This is one of the best books that I read in 2020, and I recommend it to anyone who likes books based on true stories about WWII. Heartbreaking and haunting while simultaneously demonstrating the strength of the human spirit and the power of love. These characters will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
The story is especially interesting if you aren’t sure about your own family’s immigration details.
This book was sad and happy, it was about redemption, forgiveness, atonement. Love, a great historical fiction that was well researched. Characters were believable. The back story was about autism in today’s world. the front story about the Holocaust and its effects on a polish farm family. Just a stunning story and I loved it
Another WW II book.Good story, past in 1942 and present. Granddaughter goes to Poland per her grandmother’s wish to find grandmother’s lost love, history, identity. Discovery of grandmother’s past during war and occupation in Poland, and family’s heritage solves mystery. Family dynamics a part of the story. All very good.
This WWII story is told from the perspective of people who lived through the Nazis invading Poland. The main character’s grandmother, who is on her deathbed, asks her granddaughter to go back to Poland to locate the man she fell in love with. This story has many twists and turns as the granddaughter learns that her grandfather is not who she thought he was, among other interesting facts that were true of what the Polish people suffered during the time of Hitler. I thought this book was truly excellent! I enjoyed every single page!
I don’t even have the words for this review. So many emotions. This is definitely a story I can recommend