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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exciting and Suspenseful,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: A Coming Evil (Hardcover)
Lisette hopes the year she turns thirteen will be the best year of her life. Unfortunately for her, the year she turns thirteen is 1940, when the Nazis are in France. On September first, her birthday, her parents send her away to live with her Aunt Josephine in the country because they think she will be safer there than in Paris. Lisette is not happy about going there, partly because she thinks here parents don't want her, and partly because she hates her cousin, Cecile. When she arrives at Aunt Josephine's house, she finds out her aunt is hiding Jews and Gypsies and there is a ghost in the woods. I liked this book because the story is told with a lot of detail. When you read this book, you almost feel like you are there with the characers in the story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A gripping tale from a great writer,
By
This review is from: A Coming Evil (Hardcover)
This is my favourite of all the Vivian Vande Velde books I've read so far...and that's saying something! I loved it. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I really felt for Lisette and the awful situation she found herself in, being sent away during wartime without her parents, banished to the south of France to live with not only her aunt, but also her bratty control-freak of a cousin and a motley collection of strange children that her aunt had given refuge to. It seemed to her as if her life could not get any worse...and yet it did, and she was forced to take action...
Lisette is a wonderful, brave, intelligent heroine who I found utterly believable and likeable. The other characters in the book are similarly realistic, multi-dimensional and compelling, and in the end, even the bratty cousin was redeemed by her bravery and compassion for others. These are ordinary people being forced to deal with extraordinary situations, and the author never loses sight of their human strengths and weaknesses. Such was the utter realism of this story that I had no trouble accepting the paranormal side of this tale--a ghost coming to life through his interaction and friendship with Lisette. I liked the way the author made comparisons between the way the Knights Templar were treated in medieval times, and the way the people of France were treated by the Nazis. It's a stirring reminder that even though centuries may pass, unfortunately people don't necessarily learn from the mistakes and injustices of history...the fight for freedom, for religious and racial tolerance, and for human rights is an ongoing one, even in today's society. Fortunately, though, this book doesn't suffer from any preachiness in teaching us this lesson, but remains a wonderful, quick-paced, exciting read that even people who couldn't care less about history will enjoy. I'd recommend this book to adults as well as kids, not only because of the maturity of its writing, but also because it's just so good!
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Exciting, but faulty,
This review is from: A Coming Evil (Hardcover)
Vivian Vande Velde turned away from her usual fantasy to produce a sort of ghost story set in WW2. A Coming Evil, while a very readable book, had a number of plot flaws that prevented it from being an excellent one. The plotting around Gerard is especially weak. His unexpected return to life with the appearance of Lisette was given no logical reason and his 'archaic' speech seemed particularly inaccurate. While reading the book, it was almost as though Vivian Vande Velde was just making illogical things happen to service the plot. Apart from the lack of reasonable grounding, the ending (while certainly suspenseful) seemed rushed and abruptly cut off. On the other hand, VVV is excellent at creating the right atmosphere, and the WW2 setting works unexpectedly well with the contrast to Gerard's life. Not bad, but on the whole, if you like historical ghost stories, you're much better off trying Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Sherwood Ring.
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