Margot: A Novel
Margot has a very interesting premise: what if Anne Frank's sister Margot survived the Holocaust and ended up in Philadelphia? This premise has a lot of potential and the directions to go with it are endless. Unfortunately I felt the author chose too much of a fluffy, light tone for her direction and it ended up being categorized, in my opinion, in the evilly named "chick-lit" rather than historical fiction. Cantor includes aspects I recall from Anne Frank's diary and images of her time in hiding and the concentration camp, but it came across like she was holding back and almost tip toeing around it a bit. The beginning of the novel draws you in and I was immediately intrigued. But this honestly only lasted a few chapters. The ending was the worst though, I felt as though it was terribly cliche fluff. But Margot as a character was decent, but not not necessarily fully realized. She is more defined by her sister, her former love and Joshua (her boss and love interest) than by anything wholly herself.
Overall a great premise but I felt as though the approach (fluffy, light) was a bit of an insult to the people involved. A topic such as this I feel should have been more in-depth, thought-provoking and not necessarily dark but not holding back either.