When We Return by Eliana Tobias was such a difficult read. It's a very heavy book with a realistic look at war, grief, family, and love. It's a book that stays with you long after reading.

This wasn't for me. I had a hard time completing this one. I found myself lacking interest in the story and the characters.

From the eye of a teacher, When We Return is probably going to be one of my favorite books to use with my students. Especially with students who are learning about the impacts of the politics and conflict of the 20th century, Tobias’ story, which travels between Europe, North and South America, tells the story of multiple characters, including Salvador and his mother Otilia, Gerry and his father, all of whom are impacted by the political and social situations in both Europea en Latin America. I can’t wait to use this one with my kids .

As you might expect from the tagline ‘Who should be held responsible for public wrongs?’, this is a thought-provoking book.

When We Return is written in a distant third person omniscient, to the extent it often feels like a journalist’s account. That in turn helps the reader maintain some sort of distance from the real agonies of separation that afflict most of the protagonists. It also provides space for your own thoughts and opinions on the subject matter, allowing you to connect with your own experiences, however third hand.

The scenes shift between the experiences of Miles, a holocaust avoider, and his horrific journey out of Poland to the relative safety of Peru. He starts to rebuild his life from scratch, a reminder to anyone who reads about refugees that these people were ‘someone’ in their communities before everything went horribly wrong for them – through no fault of their own. Wrong place, wrong time. Otilia has fled Peru to the relative safety of the USA , a little later than Miles – who eventually does the same, to escape the totalitarian government and the rebels creating utter mayhem in the opposite direction. Although that is the enabling background, the root is really the greed of Otilia’s extended family and the failure of local officials to apply the law. It’s complicated, as these things usually are.

Complex is a better word for the answer to the author’s question. How far do you go back to right wrongs, to create reparation? I well remember a tour of Krakow’s Jewish quarter: my host (a professor at the University) explained the difficulties when someone comes back to say this apartment or those properties belonged to my family and were stolen by the Nazis. Those apartments are now lived in by local families, who have made their own payments for the right to live there. And a growing issue in the UK (in among many other self-inflicted problems) is what to do about reparation for our involvement in the slave trade, and all the other wealth gained by the first world – on the backs of the resources and hard work of what is seen as the third world.

In creating this novel, Eliana Tobias manages to untangle several valid and worthy stories, where people have had wrongs done to them, but where reparations may or may not be forthcoming. Where do you draw the line? What is fair? How can people come to terms with their treatment at the hands of those in power, however long ago.

This is an excellent novel, with a more or less satisfactory ending for all. But it will live with you long after you’ve finished.

A story about the presidency of Alberto Fujimori in Peru and the aftermath he left behind. He was president from 1990-2000 and was later found guilty of embezzlement, kidnapping, and murder. Sadly, it was also a time when Peruvian citizens lost family members, their homes, and their land. Many human rights violations took place, and people disappeared without a trace.

Otilia and Salvador, mother and son, lost their husband and father and their land during this time.Through the Truth and Reconciliation process they tried to get some compensation, but the Peruvian government was slow, unorganized, corrupt, and inefficient.; Throughout the story, comparisons were made to the Nazis in Germany and all of the lives and homes that were also lost.

The descriptions of Lima and other parts of Peru brought me back to my visit there. At times, though, I found the story somewhat disjointed and difficult to follow.

This is my first book to read by this author but I cannot wait to read more by them! This is such a uniquely written story that you will find yourself thinking about long after you finish it. Highly recommend!!

The story of Otilia and her missing husband in 1990’s Peru was fascinating. Manuel’s disappearance andOtilia and her son’s attempt to get compensation from the government were very interesting. However the whole book read like a first draft. It was all I could do to finish it. The plot deserved a four, but the writing deserved a two.

"When We Return" by Eliana Tobias was a tender, reflective, refugee rebuilding story, knitting together a broken Peruvian family, with a Prague holocaust survivor descendent. Thoughtful regrowth, with a supportive cast, all recovering from traumatic experiences, political victims searching for a brighter future. Thank you NetGalley, The author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

This novel was difficult to get through. The writing was convoluted and imprecise. The plot seemed uncertain and preachy. The characters were neither relatable nor likable. While the historic events are accurate and there is a firm opinion regarding these, the doesn’t appear to be a point; no resolution, no redemption, and no completion.

When We Return By Eliana Tobias is the story of a Peruvian woman, Otilia, who escaped the political, military and terrorist upheavals of the 1990s in Peru, her son, Salvador, who remained in Peru, and Jerry, an American raised by Holocaust/WWII survivors.

When we meet Otilia in 2008, she has reconnected with her son, Salvador, who she was forced to abandon after her husband took her son into hiding for Salvador's protection. They never returned and Otilia was unable to find them. She eventually made her way to San Francisco and was able to make a life for herself. She is traveling back to Peru to meet with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to apply for reparations for the disappearance of her husband, Manuel, and her loss of land.

We meet Jerry in California in 2008 when he receives an email from someone claiming to be his half-brother. Jerry's Jewish Czech father, Miles, fled Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, once Germany invaded the country. After travel issues, Miles ends up in Bolivia, where he lives for years. He meets a woman, Soledad, though their relationship will never work due to religion and class. Miles eventually leaves Bolivia for the United States and settles in Niagara Falls. There he meets and marries June, whose family fled the Holocaust.

The story jumps in time from year-to-year and place-to-place. We don't see any character development, just the results of events. For example, we have no idea how Salvador and Otilia's relationship evolved after their reconciliation. Jerry and Otilia meet on a plane ride to Peru, eventually becoming partners. We don't get to see that happen, either. One chapter they're going to a concert and the next one, a year later, they are lovers and then move in together.

Tobias tells the story of the horrible time in Peru under President Alberto Fujimori and the guerrilla war between The Shining Path and the local militias that operated under government auspices. She tells of the countless disappeared, displaced and murdered and how the truth is necessary in order for there to be forgiveness and forward-progress.

Tobias connects what happened in Peru in the 1990s to the effects of the Holocaust on millions of people. She compares how the Germans eventually learned to come to terms with its horrific past, through monuments, memorials and public discourse. She highlights how Chile has honored those that were disappeared and murdered during the Pinochet regime. She focuses a lot on public discourse and who writes the history - the victors or the victims.

Her premise is extremely interesting. In fact, it would make a great doctoral thesis or non-fiction book, comparing how nations face the atrocities of the past in order to move on towards a more peaceful future. As a student of comparative studies and Latin America, I found the historical and sociological parts of the story fascinating. The comparisons are elegant and the realization of the societal needs vs. governmental wants is captivating. As a fictional novel, though, I felt there was a lot to be desired. The dialogue was disconnected from how people talk and the conversations among the characters seemed forced and unnatural. Jerry was always telling Otilia what has to happen and what the world needs to understand about memorials. The writing seemed immature in the sense that I felt I was reading a creative writing piece whose assignment was "create historical fiction".

Again, I love the idea of the story and the comparisons and questions raised, but the writing and storytelling would benefit from more flow.

NB - after I finished reading, I learned that there is a first book that discusses more of Otilia and Salvador's story. That obviously would help provide background to those characters.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #GreenleafBookGroup for an ARC of #WhenWeReturn

This historical fiction novel follows the journey of Otilia, a Peruvian woman who flees the violence in Peru, and Jerry, the son of a Jewish Immigrants who fled Europe during WWII. Otilia has recently been reunited with her son Salvador who she was separated from during the violent decades in Peru. Salvador was only 7 years old and was also separated from his father at the same time. Though reunited at long last, both carry the trauma of their separation and their struggles to survive. Jerry recently finds out his father had a son in Bolivia which he never knew about. He meets with his new half brother, now living in DC. The reader is given Jerry’s father’s backstory of how he fled from Europe during WWII to South America and eventually to the US.

Otilia and Jerry meet on a plane on their way to Peru and end up finding companionship after years of being alone. Jerry supports Otilia and her son as they seek reparations from the Peruvian government and attempt to gain back the property they lost and move forward with their new blended family.

This novel has a lot going on in it. There’s the Jewish backstory relating to the trauma of the Holocaust and there’s the backstory of fleeing Peru during a dangerous era and of family being separated for decades. I learned a lot about the political chaos in Peru that I knew little about. But I felt the story was not very engaging. The conversations between characters felt dry and void of normal banter and at times felt more like an informative lecture than 2 people casually talking. Also to note, this is a sequel to In the Belly of the Horse, which I did not know of, and might have added a bit more depth to my engagement with the novel.

Thank you to Netgalley for this advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. This review can be found on Goodreads and on IG @maria.needs.to.read

Peru is a country that is close to my heart. My husband is Peruvian and I lived with him in Lima for one year. Due to this connection, I’m always on the lookout for books set in Peru (and South America more widely). When I got a newsletter from NetGalley highlighting a book about Peru, I was instantly intrigued.

Much of When We Return details the terrorism Peru faced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the toxic presidency of Alberto Fujimori throughout the ’90s, and the aftermath of those hard years. Personally, I went into this novel with a fair amount of knowledge about these events. However, if you are unfamiliar with Peru’s recent history, this book provides enough information to understand the conflict and characters.

Eliana Tobias is ambitious in her writing here, drawing comparisons between different events and uniting characters to make those connections clearer. The main focus is on Otilia and her adult son, Salvador. In the late ’80s, Otilia became a refugee and ended up in the United States, far away from her missing son and husband. It was many years before she and Salvador reconnected – by then he was already married – but her husband, Manuel, had gone missing around the time she left. Salvador was raised by his selfish, thieving uncle, who stole Otilia’s property and sold it during her absence. (Much of this backstory from the 1980s is the focus of the author’s previous novel, In the Belly of the Horse. Sadly, I hadn’t realized this book was a sequel to that until after finishing this one.)

Now, in 2008, Otilia and Salvador are seeking reparations for the theft of their property and possessions and for the division of their family. Manuel is still missing, but presumed dead.

Otilia meets an American man around her age, named Jerry, who has just found out he has an older half-brother who grew up in Bolivia. His father, Milan, was a refugee from Prague, a Jew fleeing from the Nazis, who found a temporary home in Bolivia. After a decade there, Milan had gone on to America, where he married and had Jerry. Otilia and Jerry form a connection, bonding over their shared pasts of trauma: hers firsthand in Peru, his secondhand from his parents.

When We Return draws thoughtful comparisons between the Holocaust and the traumas Peru faced at the end of the 20th century. However, there are stark differences in how each society acknowledge their troubled past. Where Germany has put up museums honoring those who were killed in the Holocaust and places importance on remembrance, it seems that Peru is not yet ready to come to terms with its own horrors. Peru’s conflict is much more recent, and this novel offers discussion of what it means to remember, to learn from mistakes made, and to make reparations to those whose lives were torn apart. It also asks who is responsible for righting past wrongs and how justice can finally be attained. How can people move forward with their lives after such horrors?

While I greatly appreciated these discussions and commonalities, When We Return grew to be a bit monotonous. Each chapter – each scene – focuses on the horrors of the past and present, whether in Europe or South America, but there is no room for the characters to breathe. Although the main events of the book span eight years and there are numerous characters, it is heavy-handed and single-minded in its approach. The novel could have improved with more room for levity and character growth.

Some chapters (one about Jerry’s relative Anna in Prague, one about Otilia’s friend Trudy) could have been cut or greatly reduced; they were slightly irrelevant to the plot, instead serving as further examples of past injustices and sustained psychological trauma. There was already enough to work with in looking at the main characters, so those chapters felt a bit like a distraction.

One further issue is in how the characters talk with each other. Their dialogue doesn’t always feel natural: It is often too serious and even academic. Sometimes it sounds like one is a journalist asking questions of the other, rather than a family member having a heartfelt conversation. This added to the one-note feeling of When We Return.

However, I did like the discussions of grief, intergenerational trauma, and Salvador’s depression. The latter two could have been expanded upon further, but in any case, all were important and thought-provoking parts of the novel.

As much as I really wanted to like When We Return – and as much as it offers genuine value and insight – it felt almost more like it should have been nonfiction. As a novel, it needed a bit more balance between pain and joy. If there had been more focus on the characters or the 21st century plot – and more growth in either – it may have felt more complete and satisfying.

When We Return is highly informative about Peru’s 1980s and 1990s conflicts and the continuing aftermath on its citizens. It also draws thought-provoking comparisons to the more well-known atrocities of the Holocaust. While it offers tremendous value on those fronts, it is written in a more academic style, making for a dry and unflinching read. First engaging with Eliana Tobias’s previous novel, In the Belly of the Horse, may make this a more gratifying experience, and that is a book I would like to read.