I wanted to like Klara's Truth by Susan Weissbach Friedman. I have a strong connection to the Holocaust and read as much about the topic as my emotional health will allow. While the book has an interesting plot, unfortunately, the author's writing just didn't do it for me. I felt like I was readying a YA book about a 50-year-old woman. If someone wants to learn more about the Holocaust, there are better books that I would recommend instead of this one.

Klara is a 50 year old professor at a small college in Maine where it is easy for her to live a quiet life far from her difficult, cold mother. Klara was always told that she was abandoned by her father, who was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and she never had the inclination to pursue her family members still living in Poland.

Unexpectedly, Klara receives a letter from her mother encouraging her to go to Poland where she is in a position to apply for government reparations due to her father’s status as a victim of the Holocaust. Bravely, Klara takes a leave of absence and embarks upon a life altering journey during which she finds that all she believed has no basis in reality.

The story is beautifully told and touched my heart. There is an important message within the pages. It is never too late to begin anew. It is never to late to be loved. Although I had difficulty believing the quick turnaround in an important relationship with one of Klara ‘s cousins, I was able to let go of my own logic and stay within the intent of the author.

This book will be published on June 11, 2024. I recommend it for fans of historical fiction and more. Many thanks to NetGalley and She Writes publishing for an ARC in return for my review

UPDATE: the book has been withdrawn for further editing and correction, new version is expected in May


Klara is an American Jew who travels to Poland hoping to find and connect with her long-lost family. Once she reaches Warsaw she´s surprised to see a big modern city with glass towers (why does every American think that Poles live in mud huts?), and that people speak English (Poles speak many languages missy!).
The book is full of errors. Klara walks into Kofka Cafe, which is an error because it should be Kafka Cafe and her favorite is Raslowiicizanka Bakery, which is another error because it should be Rasłowiczanka. The Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw is at Okopowa Street, not Okapowa. While Klara goes to the Old Synagogue she walks to ul. Barotzsa (what?!?) should it be ul. Bartosza Głowackiego ? Anyway, this is weird, because why would she be in Bemowo? This is where one of the airports are and to walk to the Old Synagogue is precisely 8.8 km!
The name used in the book Rachel comes from Hebrew, but since in Polish most feminine names have a suffix -a, the Rachel would not be used, but Rachela instead. The name Hannah - this is typical English spelling, whereas in Polish you won't find the letter h at the end of any name, instead there should be Hanna (short: Hania), Rebeka and Sara. Towards the end of the book, there are two other names: Gednia and Mikal. I suppose Mikal is supposed to be Michał (!), but Gednia doesn´t exist in the Polish language! I guess what the author had in mind is Gienia, which is short for Genowefa, a very old-fashioned name that is almost forgotten.
Also when Klara meets a guy named Filip Jablonski, whose full name is repeated many times over. Not only the Poles don´t do that (imagine this: hi, have you seen Mel Smith? No, I haven't. Maybe Mel Smith went shopping. Ok I will ring Mel Smith and see if Mel Smith wants to come over. Maybe Mel Smith would like to come over tomorrow, what do you think? Oh I'm sure Mel Smith would love that. - get it?) Also in Polish grammar there is conjugation, so we should see Filip Jabłonski, Filipa Jabłonskiego, Filipem Jabłonskim etc. In English there´s no letter "ł" so readers won´t find it in the text, which I can forgive, but I´m pretty sure this omission wouldn´t happen with Spanish Ñ or Turkish Ç etc.

As for the story I was hoping for so much more. There is nothing new here. Family drama blown out of proportions, a romance that´s written like YA story, and Klara herself - the most frustrating and annoying character ever. She is 49 years old, teary and can´t cope with her family issues. She falls in love with a 46-year-old man and asks him about his past relationships, behaves erratically and resembles a 13-year-old in every possible way. I disliked Klara even more when she gained an interest in Filip once she discovered he had a PhD. Seriously? Goodness me!
The writing is simple, more like a YA type of narrative. Repetitive language.
At the end we see Klara undergoing therapy, but just any therapy, it´s EMDR. It´s very specific. I was wondering why the author decided to go into details of this treatment because it´s not important for the story at all. It turns out that the author is a psychotherapist herself. Oh, ok... Cringe.

I´m sorry for this lengthy review, but I believe in honesty and this is my very honest review.

This was a great debut novel, I was invested in Doctor Klara's story. It had everything I was looking for from the description and how much I enjoyed the genre. Susan Weissbach Friedman has a great writing style and creates great characters.

I find myself to be an avid reader of historical fiction and this is another book I can add to my completed stack. It is a story of finding lost roots, confronting ghosts, and forging new paths.

Having endured many traumatic experiences as a youth, Klara is almost child like in her demeanor. Having said that, I found some of her interactions somewhat unbelievable, particularly the ones with Filip and Hannah.

Her relationship with her mother didn’t seem to evolve at all in the course of the book, but Klara didn't let that stop her from trying to discover her past and learn from it. The addition of the specific types of therapy Klara utilized didn’t necessarily add anything to the story. I felt that if it was going to be used there was a missed opportunity by a lack of really delving into what EDMR actually consists of and how the process fully works. I am however happy to see talk therapy cast in a positive light in the book.

I did find the book to be repetitive in its descriptions at times. The author tends to use a lot of the same phrases when she is sharing about Klara’s journey.

It read like a young adult book to me. Im not sure if that’s because of Klara’s demeanor throughout the book or how she managed her relationships, but although she was almost 50 years old, she didn’t come across that way.
Overall, it’s an easy read so far as historical fiction is concerned, It wasn’t very heavy and it offered information that was relevant to the time it was describing.