My Darling Elia

By Eugenie Melnyk

Book Overview

At Montreal's huge Sunday flea market, an elderly man is stricken when he finds a crude locket in a box of jewelry at one of the booths. While recovering, he explains that it was a gift to his beloved... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312205651
• ISBN13: 9780312205652
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.0" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Read

I found this book entrancing and difficult to put down. The relentless spirit of Elia is well captured. Characters have both depth and feeling, putting you center stage of the turmoil of their time.A well structured and easy reading book with an ageless quality similar to Anne Frank.

Graphic Details

"Goretsky lay still, his face a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. The solider swung his boot and kicked the motionless figure. Goretsky's lifeless body flopped like a sawdust doll, then settled facedown into the earth." (p. 30) This is the least detailed sentence I could find in this book. The rest is absoultely graphic and really reaches out to my heart. Elia is the main character and he is one of the few who survived the massacre at Babi Yar, where thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Germans. Elia returns from Babi Yar when he finds Anna, his wife gone. She had gone to another city for their daughter's safety. It is Elia's love for his wife, Anna, that keeps him going despite the winter cold, starvation, injuries and Germans looking for him. Years later when it is all over, Elia tells his story to Liz and Cia who sells objects at a flea market. Elia met them both when he discovered the locket,in a box full of jewerly, that was once a gift to his wife. Liz and Cia set out to find Anna upon Elia's request. Very hopeful book. Throughout the book, I only hoped that Elia would find the one thing he had always loved, Anna. This book has left me pondering about how Elia never once gave up and that showed such great courage, hope, faith and true love for Anna. I would reccomend this book to anyone who seeks truly moving stories.

Not just another Holocaust book

Heartwrenching story of a young man desparately seeking a love lost during the terrors of war. Is love so great a thing to risk your life over and over and over again? Will they ever be reunited? I picked this book up on a whim... but couldn't put it down. This book will draw you in, entertain you, and educate you. I found it very close to home as my husband is currently serving over seas in the military. Now our sacrifices seem small in comparison.

Touching Read!

Many of us have read so many books and tales of experiences from the Holocaust that I seriously wondered if this book would shed any new light on the subjct matter. Well, for me as a reader it certainly did. While I have read many first hand and fictional accounts about the camps and even life after the war, this book did a fine job of describing the early years of WWII and then life on the run and with the Resistance movement. I shed tears when Elia learned of the fate of his beloved and the ending certainly was heart wrenching. I also enjoyed the way the author involved a teenager, who thought she knew everything, into a relationship with Elia which ultimately changed the direction of her life.I was saddened to read the the author died shortly before the book was published. I would have looked forward to more books by her.

One of the best books ever written!

It shows the horrors and kindness that humans do to each other ;keeps you in suspense until the end. Should be read in all highschool or college english classes.