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ClareR (5854 KP) rated Those Who Are Loved in Books

May 30, 2019  
Those Who Are Loved
Those Who Are Loved
Victoria Hislop | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
An emotional look at modern Greek history.
This book is about the lives of the Koralis family, and particularly Themis, from 1930 to 2016. We follow them through some of the most disruptive times in Greek history - I hadn’t actually realised how deeply traumatic recent Greek history was.

Themis is a partisan fighter during WW2, trying to get the Germans out of Greece, and then fighting the right-wing government who had supported the invading Germans. She ends up a prisoner and endures terrible living conditions and violence at the hands of her prison guards. She returns home, marries and has a family, but her past is always with her. Greece doesn’t allow her to forget, as it continues to be led by a military government under martial law.

I loved following Themis and her siblings lives in the earlier chapters of the book, the history I’d never known about before (that Victoria Hislop describes so well), and her children and their lives in the latter half of the book.
Themis is a quietly formidable woman, who always stands by her beliefs and her family, and there are some really very emotional parts to this book.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this wonderful book - I’ll definitely be buying some copies as birthday presents this year, that’s for sure.