THE KEEPER OF HIDDEN BOOKS Book Review

The Keeper of Hidden Books¹ by Madeline Martin, physical 416 pgs, audio 10h 53m

Synopsis from Goodreads: All her life, Zofia has found comfort in two things during times of hardship: books and her best friend, Janina. But no one could have imagined the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Warsaw. As the bombs rain down and Hitler’s forces loot and destroy the city, Zofia finds that now books are also in need of saving.

With the death count rising and persecution intensifying, Zofia jumps to action to save her friend and salvage whatever books she can from the wreckage, hiding them away, and even starting a clandestine book club. She and her dearest friend never surrender their love of reading, even when Janina is forced into the newly formed ghetto.

But the closer Warsaw creeps toward liberation, the more dangerous life becomes for the women and their families—and escape may not be possible for everyone. As the destruction rages around them, Zofia must fight to save her friend and preserve her culture and community using the only weapon they have left—literature. 

BOOK REVIEW: This was such a great book. If you enjoy historical fiction, you'll enjoy this. While I don't usually read the acknowledgments or the author's notes, I was encouraged to read the author's notes in this book. Well, it was my mom and she told me to read the epilogue and the author's notes to which I told her that she is the only person I know that will skip a prologue and epilogue on a regular basis. Anyway, the author talks about the research she did for this book, what she could find and verify, and because records were scarce and sometimes written in code, she went with what she could find the most consistent. She visited the areas that she writes about and I think she did a beautiful job. For a book that spans, 5 or 6 years, nothing feels rushed. Even when chapters will have a scene break and jump ahead a couple of months. None of it felt disconnected.

I did end up listening to the audiobook as well. I was struggling to find the time to read the library book and if I wanted to finish in time for our book club discussion, I had to do a hybrid read! I'm so glad that I did because I was finally able to learn how the names and places were pronounced. Typically I skip words in other languages that I don't know if I don't have time to look them up but in a book like this, there was no way I could look everything up to pronounce it correctly. The narrator did a wonderful job with the accents for the different characters. I did look up the narrator as I'm writing my review and was shocked to find that she is from New Zealand! One of her parents is Dutch so that could explain her amazing accent but again, she did a great job!

Overall this was a 4.5 star for me. I'm not entirely sure what could have made it a full 5 star. I think because it took me a while to get into it but I did enjoy it and the story drew me in from the beginning. Again, the narrator did an amazing job. She deepened her voice just enough for male characters but for the most part she just changed the inflection and her tone for the female characters as well. I will say grab some tissues because there were times that I was listening and if I hadn't been doing five other things at the same time then I would have been bawling my eyes out. I definitely recommend this book and I think our book club has another one of her books on our group's TBR.

4.5/5 Stars

2026 Reading Challenge: 46/55 complete

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