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by Jordyn Taylor
From the author of The Paper Girl of Paris comes Rebel Girls of Rome, a thrilling and heartfelt dual POV novel about Lilah, a girl looking to reconnect with her grandfather over his mysterious past during a trip to Rome, and Bruna, a queer Jewish woman who escapes the Nazis in Italy and joins the resistance during World War II.
NOW:
Grieving the loss of her mother, college student Lilah is hoping to reconnect with her ever-distant grandfather who refuses to talk about his past. When a fellow student in Italy brings a long-lost family heirloom to her attention, Lilah travels to Rome with her grandfather in the hopes of unlocking his history as a survivor of the Holocaust once and for all.
But as they get closer to the truth—and the possibility of healing through new connections—she begins to realize that some secrets may be too painful to unbury ...
THEN:
It's 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and her family are doing their best to survive in Rome's Jewish quarter under Nazi occupation. When the dreaded knock comes early one morning, and Bruna realizes her youngest brother, Raffa, is missing, her desperate search to find him separates her from the rest of her family irrevocably.
Overcome with guilt at escaping her family's fate in the camps, Bruna joins the partisan efforts against the Nazis and Italian Fascists. When her missions bring her back to her childhood crush, Elsa, she must decide what it really means to live and love—and if fully embracing herself might be her greatest act of resistance of all. But just as she starts to find light in the darkness, an attack that ends in unspeakable tragedy leaves Bruna questioning her fortitude to survive more than ever before.
Part historical mystery, part sweeping romance, Jordyn Taylor brings Bruna and Lilah's stories to brilliant life in this compelling, emotional read in the vein of The Paper Girl of Paris. With dual historical and contemporary POVs—where heartbreak, hope, and finding light in times of darkness are inevitably intertwined—this is perfect for readers of Ruta Sepetys and Monica Hesse.
"A complexly woven yet accessible story of family history, trauma, and healing." —Kirkus Reviews
"The Rebel Girls of Rome alternates between the stories of two young women from the same Jewish family in different timelines: Lilah in the present day and her great-aunt Bruna in World War II. Both their stories kept me on the edge of my seat as details emerged about what happened to the family after a Nazi roundup in 1943. A gripping tale of resistance, survival, and love." —Kip Wilson, award-winning author of White Rose and The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin
This information about The Rebel Girls of Rome was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jordyn Taylor is a New York City–based writer and journalist, currently the deputy editor at Men's Health magazine; her work has appeared in the New York Observer, on Mic, and on Glamour.com.
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