A Different Kind Of Fighter Against the Nazis
Selected for the 2021 Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot and declared one of the Best Young Adult Books of 2021, Wrath Becomes Her, written by Aden Polydoros is a book that readers aren't going to want to miss out on- young or old. A tale of a young golem created by a dead girl's father meant to hate and destroy the Nazis that killed his daughter- a mixture of kishuf and holy words written all over her body transcribed from a mixture of old Jewish documents- Vera sets out alone after her creator, Ezra disappears. Now on the search for him, Vera gets to experience firsthand the destruction of the millions of Jewish lives she was meant to avenge.
However, golems are meant to be destroyed in the Jewish culture- in the end, hating the very people that create them when it is realized (by the golem) that they are not one of them. Because, when the golem enters the world they too, like humans, search for meaning and their purpose in the world. When they see humanity and that they are made in the image of humans, but not one of them, when they realize they will never be, golems turn on them, destroying that which they were made from, of, and by.
What makes everything worse for Vera is that Ezra desecrates his daughter's body after death- removing her tongue, hair, and teeth to give to Vera. So now the very memories that makeup Ezra's daughter's life are a part of Vera- and no matter how hard the golem wants to separate herself from what she is made of, she cannot. For all her strength Vera is bound by her creator.
When Vera meets Akiva, a man who is very much in love with Chaya, at first he mistakes her for his dead love. Then Vera shares what she is with Akiva and, having a common bond, the two unite, pair up, and start looking for Ezra. On the way, they learn of a Nazi shipment with a secret weapon that is bent on destruction. The pair are going to intercept it. However, first, they come across manuscripts and documents that the Nazis are compiling of Jewish mysticism and lore. Many of these documents were in the possession of Vera's creator, Chaya's father, Ezra. So, Vera assumes Ezra is either close by, while Akiva tries to convince her the old man is dead.
While on the radio, getting interception points for the Nazi shipment they mean to intercede in and take, a group of Jewish militia is attacked by something that seems to tear the group quickly apart, something that doesn't seem possible. Vera then talks to this villain on the radio, it calls itself- Mokkurkalfi, although it says it has no name. It also tells Vera that it is hungry and this hunger feels as "though something is growing inside of me." This thing bent on destroying everything, it seems, is just another growing hurdle in Jewish society bent on destroying them.
Aden Polydoros gives readers a look at World War II and the destruction the Nazis wrought on the Jews through different eyes- mystical ones. Showing readers what could happen when people are pushed past the limit of what they can handle, can take no more pain- what can happen when they turn away from reality to the mystical. Because if there was any period so horrific as to give birth to something otherworldly- if a mokkurkalfi walked the European soil to aid the Nazis in Jewish destruction- and golems were birthed out of Jewish pain- none of this would surprise me.
One of the most unbelievably cruel periods in world and human history, Aden Polydoros gives readers a different take, a darker and more real, in a sense, look at the world during that time. And though it is fictional, the way the book permeates the sadness of it all, the waste and the horror, nothing I have read has ever been more real. Because, if anything, Polydoros managed to get the madness, the meaningless hate, and the utter helplessness of the Jewish community across with this book- a period which we must always remember so that it can never happen again!
A Must Read For Young and Old- a hands down 5-star book!
However, golems are meant to be destroyed in the Jewish culture- in the end, hating the very people that create them when it is realized (by the golem) that they are not one of them. Because, when the golem enters the world they too, like humans, search for meaning and their purpose in the world. When they see humanity and that they are made in the image of humans, but not one of them, when they realize they will never be, golems turn on them, destroying that which they were made from, of, and by.
What makes everything worse for Vera is that Ezra desecrates his daughter's body after death- removing her tongue, hair, and teeth to give to Vera. So now the very memories that makeup Ezra's daughter's life are a part of Vera- and no matter how hard the golem wants to separate herself from what she is made of, she cannot. For all her strength Vera is bound by her creator.
When Vera meets Akiva, a man who is very much in love with Chaya, at first he mistakes her for his dead love. Then Vera shares what she is with Akiva and, having a common bond, the two unite, pair up, and start looking for Ezra. On the way, they learn of a Nazi shipment with a secret weapon that is bent on destruction. The pair are going to intercept it. However, first, they come across manuscripts and documents that the Nazis are compiling of Jewish mysticism and lore. Many of these documents were in the possession of Vera's creator, Chaya's father, Ezra. So, Vera assumes Ezra is either close by, while Akiva tries to convince her the old man is dead.
While on the radio, getting interception points for the Nazi shipment they mean to intercede in and take, a group of Jewish militia is attacked by something that seems to tear the group quickly apart, something that doesn't seem possible. Vera then talks to this villain on the radio, it calls itself- Mokkurkalfi, although it says it has no name. It also tells Vera that it is hungry and this hunger feels as "though something is growing inside of me." This thing bent on destroying everything, it seems, is just another growing hurdle in Jewish society bent on destroying them.
Aden Polydoros gives readers a look at World War II and the destruction the Nazis wrought on the Jews through different eyes- mystical ones. Showing readers what could happen when people are pushed past the limit of what they can handle, can take no more pain- what can happen when they turn away from reality to the mystical. Because if there was any period so horrific as to give birth to something otherworldly- if a mokkurkalfi walked the European soil to aid the Nazis in Jewish destruction- and golems were birthed out of Jewish pain- none of this would surprise me.
One of the most unbelievably cruel periods in world and human history, Aden Polydoros gives readers a different take, a darker and more real, in a sense, look at the world during that time. And though it is fictional, the way the book permeates the sadness of it all, the waste and the horror, nothing I have read has ever been more real. Because, if anything, Polydoros managed to get the madness, the meaningless hate, and the utter helplessness of the Jewish community across with this book- a period which we must always remember so that it can never happen again!
A Must Read For Young and Old- a hands down 5-star book!