return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Reader reviews of The Sandcastle Girls

Read what people think about The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian, and write your own review.

The Sandcastle Girls

The Sandcastle Girls
A Novel
by Chris Bohjalian
Hardcover: Jul 2012,
320 pages.
Paperback: Apr 2013,
320 pages.

Publication information
Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:  
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book
Page 1 of 1 There are currently 4 reviews
for The Sandcastle Girls
Select your view:
Order Reviews by:
Click Here To Write Your Own Review
Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Big Bear
A historic thriller with color and mystery
Chris Bohjalian writes with rhythm, changing the tempo with the times of the events he is describing or the content of these events. All this while he describes authentic and well researched horrific events. The prose leaves you glued to the book and although one can form a theory or two about how the story will end, the powerful and emotionally charged ending is perhaps an example of as courageous and selfless act as I have become aware of. The details of the ethnic customs he describes are delicious and never to be forgotten. This is a historic thriller with tentacles going forward to our times.

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by Anita
Poor writing
I have previously learned about the Armenian holocaust and was anxious to read about it in a novel format. I am certain the the author did much research and based stories of the suffering of the characters in the book on that information. But I found the style of writing very off-putting and couldn't relate or feel very sympathetic to the the plight of the characters in this book. I didn't like the manner in which the two settings in time were told. I really wouldn't recommend this book unless someone to learn little about this episode of history.

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by Louise J
Hugely Disappointing...
The Sandcastle Girls is a love story between Elizabeth Endicott, a wealthy Bostonian, and a young Armenian engineer named Armen. This love story takes place during the Armenian genocide in 1915- 1916, but the entire storyline reverts backs and forth between the past and the present.

I found the book a bit drab and didn’t enjoy the writing alternating between past and present tense. I honestly cannot say that I will be recommending The Sandcastle Girls to anyone soon as I won’t be. This novel was a huge disappointment to me considering the strength of and enjoyment in Bohjalian’s previous fourteen novels.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Diane S.
The Sandcastle Girls
This book was incredibly difficult for me to read, and yet without books like these horrific events and the people who survived them would be forgotten. The Armenian genocide of 1915, is not something we learned in school and Bohjalian does a masterful job of presenting it in all its honesty and horror. Yet amongst the cruelty, there are instances of love and kindness and caring, even by those who were ordered to carry out these atrocities. Human people, with real human feelings, yet just as with other atrocities committed in the past and even now, there are not enough people to help or to even question. Things like this should not have happened and yet we trust that brilliant authors will continue to write heartbreaking stories to enlighten the reader. Well done and a fantastic book.

  1

Lists of books with similar themes


Read-Alikes


Other books by Chris Bohjalian
Buy This Book:

Become a Member
Click Here
Editor's Choice
  •  May 23 
  •  May 21 
  •  May 20 
And the Mountains Echoed
Khaled Hosseini

And the Mountains Echoed Jacket

Khaled Hosseini has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations
Helga's Diary
Helga Weiss

Helga's Diary Jacket

The remarkable diary of a young girl who survived the Holocaust—appearing in English for the first time.
Fever
Mary Beth Keane

Fever Jacket

A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Young Adult Books That Are Not About The Holocaust
Books to Give This Mother's Day
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
Two Lives by Vikram Seth
Two Lives is a memoir written by international best-selling author, Vikram Seth. In this interesting and engaging book, Seth writes about his great... read more
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight... read more
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Wonder
R.J. Palacio
2. A Child Called It
Dave Pelzer
3. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
4. The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks
5. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
John Boyne
More...
Book Club Recommendations
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
Paperback (Mar/13)
Eleanor & Park
by Rainbow Rowell
Hardback (Feb/13)
The House Girl
by Tara Conklin
Paperback (Oct/13)
The Painted Girls
by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Hardback (Jan/13)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
The Caretaker
by A .X. Ahmad
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Sisterhood
by Helen Bryan
Four Stars            (Apr/13)
Golden Boy
by Abigail Tarttelin
4.5 Stars            (May/13)
The Last Girl
by Jane Casey
Four Stars            (May/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
Judge rules unused Borders gift cards to be worthless (May 23 2013)
Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: Which of these Summer movies based on books would you like to see? (Info on each movie here)
The Great Gatsby
Epic
Man of Steel
World War Z
The Lone Ranger
The Wolverine
R.I.P.D.
Percy Jackson
Paranoia
The Mortal Instruments
Select Any That Apply
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters
The Light Between Oceans

Online Book Club
More about
Five Days
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
On Sal Mal Lane


"Piercingly intelligent and shatter-your-heart profound."

Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"I Y N P O T Solution, Y P O T P"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Menna van Praag
Erica Brown
Helga Weiss
Kate Morton
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us