Not quite sure what the objects were in this book, but it was a story of a girl from Ireland moving to pre-WW2 Germany. There are subtle references to the impending war and milestones, but it mostly focuses on the main character and how she adapts to her new life. Overall, it was an ok read, I felt it similar to the Book Thief, but with less emotion and less character development. ( )

slow ( )

It tells the story of a young woman from Ireland, who develops a talent for making lace, which helps her get an offer to move to Germany and live with a wealthy couple there. She is eager to escape her confining life with her parents, so she accepts the offer. Unfortunately for her, this happens just before the start of WW2 and her employers are on bad terms with the German authorities. They move to an estate in the countryside after the war starts, and spend the war years there.
The book tells the story of what happens to them during the war, the gradual decline in their living standards, from wealth to nothing. It was interesting to see the effect of the war on Germans who were not party officials or others who had their good graces. ( )

This wonderful novel tells the tale of a young Irish girl,unhappy with her bleak family, who travel to Germany where she will go in service to a wealthy family. The time is the 1938. She stays with the family though the war and it's aftermath. The characters are sympathetic and well developed and the horrible times are described with honesty and believability. Highly recommended. ( )

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this novel, which was at times difficult to put down, and at others quite difficult to get through. It follows the protagonist, Maeve (whose name is later revealed as Beatrice with no explanation for the deception), as she leaves Ireland to become a lace maker for a wealthy German family, on the eve of World War II.

One focus of the story is her fondness for finery, and her interest in “the life of objects.” We see her relationship with these objects change in myriad ways as she faces war and upheaval. She herself also changes, although these changes feel as though they’re viewed from a great distance rather than feeling authentic.

And there, I think, lies the problem. The focus of the novel is kaleidoscopic in nature—the journey of a girl from poverty to an environment of wealth, romance, war, the relationship between people and material goods—a great deal was tackled in a short novel, with the end result that while it generated interest, it never quite gathered sufficient depth to truly pull the reader in. In my final assessment, I think the author created a rich sense of setting and history, but the lack of character development made it difficult to connect to this story. ( )