Tamar

I apologize greatly for not being active on writing more reviews, but I went to New York City for a few days (and where I live, it's about 3 hours away so I got a ton of reading done.) and our computer unexpectedly broke and I hate typing on my phone. So I was waiting (and reading) until our computer would be fixed. So I have a backlist and a lot of reviews to type.
You NEED to read this one. It's a Carnegie Medal winner! I'm kind of out of touch with which ones win every year, but I do know from experience that they are always the best. I hope that one day I write a book that gets the Carnegie Medal. It'd be my dream come true.


The cover-

 

Tamar is a spy for the British army sent to the Netherlands on a top secret mission. All throughout the Netherlands, there have been small cells of rebels sabotaging Nazi camps, known today as the Dutch Resistance. They are scattered and "lack the one thing that makes them a considerable threat... unity." (I didn't quote from the book, I quoted from a television series that is also about rebellion, but in a fictional world. Star Wars Rebels if you must know.)

Tamar and his friend Dart have the mission to unite as many of the cells together as they can before the Germans suspect something is wrong. Their base is at the home of the beautiful Marijke who is Tamar's lover. She sheltered him on a previous mission to the Netherlands, so she could be trusted. Tamar naturally stays with her, but Dart is sent to an asylum where he has to pose as the apprentice of a doctor.

Everyone is tense with the war going on and the fact that both men are on secret missions doesn't make them feel any better. Tamar is having no luck with unifying the resistance cells and winter is slowly creeping up on the small farmhouse and its inhabitants. Paranoia is settling and both Tamar and Dart are going insane. The Nazis are onto them after a skirmish that ended up killing two German soldiers. 

A former ally has suddenly become an enemy when Dart decides to shelter him in the asylum to keep him out of the eye of the Nazis and even Tamar. Dart is faced with a difficult decision and he doesn't know whether to protect Tamar and the rest of his new friends in Holland or watch them all die at the salvation of his own life. Everything seems to be in a haze as no one knows who to trust and who is going to be by their side for the final battle.

Tamar is also the name of a girl living fifty years later in Great Britain. One night her grandfather suddenly commits suicide and leaves her a box filled with various diaries and passports and identity papers. She takes it upon herself to find out the meaning of all this and finally understand her namesake. With her cousin Johannes (Yoyo) she decides to take a roadtrip and understand what her grandfather was never able to tell her.

My thoughts-

It's an intense book that makes you feel all sorts of emotions! There's mystery in the beginning, a little bit of festivity and slight happiness in the middle and utter depression and anguish at the end. I love the way the two stories are paired together. They seem to wind around each other, making sense and then suddenly pulling away in opposite directions. The clues had been hidden around both main characters but they couldn't make sense of them until the end of the book.

Just now while writing this review I put my earbuds in my ears to listen to some music. The first song that came up was Hero by Skillet and as I was thinking about the lyrics, I realized that it describes the meaning of this book very well. I advise you all to listen to it partially because it's a good song anyways and also after you have read the book because it all just seems to come together. It describes the utter helplessness of being caught in a war and just fulfilling your service so you don't need to see any more of the pain.

Currently my mother is reading this and her first comment to me was "Do you seriously like intense war books? That does not seem like you." I can understand her surprise because I am a person who prefers light books and some darker ones, but none that come close to the intensity of this one. Yes, I enjoyed it. After our study of World War I, World War II and even also the Korean and Vietnam wars at school, I've found a new liking for wartime literature. I know I will never go through the same things these people went through in their struggles to make the world a better place, but I like to hear it from another person's voice.

The only thing I will tell about the ending of this book is that it makes you feel like lead. I got a headache and put the book aside as soon as I finished it. It's kind of like a feeling where you know the world is going to end but you can't do anything about it. You just sit there and let death come to you. I have never felt like this towards any book. Usually I'm apathetic and move on to the next book but I wasn't able to read for several days after this. I was secretly mourning for the loss of the main characters who had died and I had come to love.