This was a really enjoyable read even though at times parts were hard to read. Read it quickly and was thinking of the characters for days after.

This is the story of one woman’s quest to uncover the stories of her Jewish family, all of whom were caught up in the turbulent times of the 20th century in Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Germany. Inevitably the stories she discovers are tragic ones. Some of the vignettes of individual members of her family are painful to read, as might be expected. The description of the last moments of her great-grandmother, (the “maybe” Esther of the title) is particularly haunting. No one could surely read this memoir without being deeply moved - at least at times. Unfortunately I found the fragmentary nature of the narrative distancing and sometimes confusing. The jumps in time and place although indicative of the era made the book feel very disjointed. Powerful reading, certainly, but I would have enjoyed a more sustained narrative.

Written in first-person narrative, it gets pretty confusing along the way. It was difficult to keep track of whom and what I was reading about. Having saw this title at the Guardian homepage, I thought I would like reading this book. It’s not what I thought it would be.