Orphan #8: A Novel

The ebb and flow of the story captured my attention.

Beautiful and tragic. This book reminded me of The Sunflower: On the Possibility and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal . Both bring up the question of forgiveness. Can Rachel forgive Dr. Solomon for what she did to her as a child? The narration of the book switches back and forth from 1919 when Rachel is a young girl in a Jewish Orphanage and years later when she is a nurse taking care of elderly patients one of whom is the Doctor who experimented on her as a young child. Complex and riveting this book submerges you and makes you think about humanity and what might be your capacity for forgiveness, love and evil. There is also a subplot of lgbt rights, the troubling reality that hospital visits, and being out were not allowed. Very good book.

I had the story figured out at 25% mark. Unfulfilling characters and plot.

Really enjoyed it, great story and great narrator. Recommend it.

It was a hard journey both for the characters and the reader. Gripping and involving, I felt sad for the life that Rachel led. The last chapter was uplifting. The reading was really good, giving a sense of the characters, well-paced and clear.

A compelling read on aspects of early to mid-1900s Jewish history I have never heard much about. Some LGBTQ thrown in as well. And Redheads! I love the part in the back about the author and what inspired the story with photos. Wish all books would do that. SPOILER ALERT: I was very disappointed that she didn't get closure with her brother or learn the truth about her parents by the end of the story. Those were major plot lines that didn't get a resolution.

This is a well-written book, a lot of it based on the author's family history. Pictures in the back of the book documenting how various locations might have looked at the time of the story.Rachel and her brother,Sam are put in an orphanage. Rachel goes to an infant home where she is experimented on with X-rays and permanently loses all hair on her body. Once she is moved to the orphanage where Sam is, Rachel is bullied because she is bald. As Rachel gets older, she works in the infirmary where nursing becomes her goal. Sam runs away before graduation, after an incident at the home,and Rachel soon follows. Rachel eventually returns to New York and works as a nurse. The woman doctor who subjected Rachel to all the X-rays becomes Rachel's patient in the hospital where she is working. Rachel is torn. Should she be compassionate or should she seek revenge?

Love reading fiction and finding out something I NEVER KNEW! The "P.S." section of Kim van Alkemade's book was amazing... so glad to read where her inspiration for this book came from -

Fascinating topic, however the author tried to cram too many issues into this story. Reading this felt like being in a classroom and not in a good way. The writing was stilted and the author spent much of the time "telling" rather than "showing". I did not become engrossed in the story at all.
That being said, there are many great points here for book club to jump on, discussions could be quite lively!

Although I liked the premise of this novel, it didn't satisfy me as much as I had hoped. I loved the moral dilemma that Rachel was facing and I really enjoyed reading about the life Rachel had lived before, during, and after the experimentation that led to this culminating point in the novel. The complexity of the situation was aptly described and it made me rethink my own views on the situation. Revenge always seems simple when you first encounter a situation where you have been wronged, and it's not often that one gets the chance to really delve deeper into the emotions and morals associated with revenge. This novel gives you that chance. That being said, the ending was too bittersweet for my taste. I felt like I wanted more for Rachel. The author had done such a good job portraying her character that I felt a kinship towards her and wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. And even though life doesn't work out that way, I wanted it to. In a way, that's a sign that this novel is fantastic in its ability to capture the reader's attention and draw the sympathy of the reader for the protagonist. If you are looking for a good historical fiction, I would definitely recommend this one!

Very well written novel based on historical facts.Over the course of about 80 plus years the Hebrew Orphanage in NYC housedand took care of 1,000 children at any given time. They were very wellprovided for in material ways. However,their methods for treating sick children seem quite cold by today'sstandards. In 1919 x-rays and radium were all the rage in medical circles.A very,very rare for the time female doctor decided to make a name for herselfby using x-rays to shrink tonsils to prove it was a better treatment than surgery.She used healthy children in this experiment. One was exposed the most and thatwas Orphan #8. This experiment left most with no hair,brows or lashes for life.This book is the story of Rachel's life,Orphan #8's,the child exposed to the most radiation.The book moves fast back and forth in time opening with Rachel a 40 year old nurse at theHebrew Old Folk's home. There she encounters as a patient the doctor who conducted thex-ray "treatments" on her. This encounter opens up the memory banks and Rachel does researchand finds out that she was not sick at all but used for no good end.I found the historical details in the afterword to be as interesting as the novel. There is a personal,family connection to the Orphanage with the author so there were personal photographsof real people some of the characters were based on.

I appreciated the switching of time periods in order to gain a full understanding of the characters within this story. I find myself awed by the events of this story and further intrigued by the experiments conducted on young orphans for medical advancement.

Kim van Alkemade has written several articles in magazines that have been described as "creative non-fiction", whatever that may be. While researching her family genealogy, she came across a reference to a Medical Journal article that shocked her and she felt compelled to tell the story, but in a fictionalized novel. Some of the people in this book are actually real. Some are actually her relatives. While the girl, Rachel Rabinowitz and her brother Sam are works of fiction, what happens to Rachel, is not. This is an important book that raises questions about science and its practice, and whether you can forsake justified vengeance and forgive the unforgivable.In 1919 the Jewish family, the Rabinowitzs, which consists of Harry, the father who works in a shirtwaist factory, who is saving for the chance to have his own contractor business, goes to Society meetings to make contacts, and is hoping to move his family up to the nicer neighborhood of Harlem; Visha, his wife, who wants another child and dreams of moving out of their three room tenement, where she looks after two borders and the two children, Rachel, four (who is known for her temper tantrums that only her brother can seem to stop) and Sam, six, who just started school. When Harry forgets his lunch, Visha and Rachel go to the factory, which Harry has forbidden them to do. When they return home, an angry Italian mother and her eighteen-year-old daughter show up at her house telling her that Harry, who met the girl at work, has been courting her daughter and has gotten her pregnant. It's hard to tell which ticks her off more: that her daughter is pregnant by a man already married or that he is really Jewish. Visha realizes that he has lied to her. There is no money being saved up. When he returns home, the two get into a fight and Harry accidentally cuts Visha's neck, in front of the two children. While she bleeds to death on the floor, Harry quickly packs up and runs away.The children end up going to social services, where a nice woman is determined to find a foster home for them. Unfortunately, the two will have to be split up for now due to their ages, until she can find a home. Sam goes to the Hebrews Orphanage Home and Rachel goes to the Infant Hebrew Home. When she gets there, the social worker is told that Rachel will have to spend a month in isolation to make sure she does not have any diseases. This was 1919. Many of the diseases that we have vaccines for now, could kill children back then. A month later when the social worker returns with the news that a nice Jewish couple in Harlem is willing to take them both, she finds that Rachel now has both measles and conjunctivitis and will not be well enough to be taken in by this couple anytime soon, so she looks for another placement for the couple. The Infant Home would be seen as perhaps, hellish, to those of us today, and I have to admit it rather is. The nurses do not believe in touching the babies. Dr. Hess (a real person, who was the son-in-law of Strauss, the founder of Macy's, which is where the Home gets its money for fancy equipment) runs experiments on the children. He sees them as no better than lab rats, in that they are actual human subjects whose situations, such as home life, background, diet, etc...are the same and therefore variables can be controlled, which is a rarity in scientific research. Rachel's life changes when she meets Dr. Mildred Solomon a female doctor, an oddity of the time, who is there to do her residency and wants to run her own experiment, get published, establish herself, and get out of there.This book goes back and forth between Rachel's past growing up and her present as a nurse in the Hebrews Home for the elderly. Rachel has many secrets. One is that she is a lesbian whose partner is away in Miami, for some unknown reason. When Dr. Solomon arrives on her floor, the hospice ward, terminally ill with bone cancer, she recognizes her and talks to her and finds out that she was a doctor at the Infant Home when she was there. She has always wondered what disease she had that necessitated some form of treatment. When she goes to the Medical Library she uncovers the horror of what happened in the Home and to her. She was "material # 8". She also discovers that because of that she is in grave danger of developing a serious disease that could kill her.After leaving the Infant Home almost two years later, Rachel goes to the Hebrews Orphan Home, where she meets Mrs. Berger at reception, who works there while her son, Vic, is housed there. Vic's best friend just happens to be Rachel's brother Sam. While finally reunited, Sam has become hardened by his years in the Home where the bells ring constantly for every possible thing and the orphans respond like Pavlov's dogs sensing exactly when the bell is going to ring and making sure they are where they are supposed to be so they don't get slapped by the monitor (an orphan who is in charge of level and is usually two years older) or worse. There are 1000 kids in the home [my alma mater Catawba College, in Salisbury, NC, only had a little over 800 students and much more space], which is a large castle that takes up a whole city block in New York City. The book has a photograph of it. It may seem really bad, but actually, a state home is so much worse. At least here they receive dental care, medical care, three meals a day, and decent clothes and shoes to wear.Sam, determined to look after his sister, bribes one of her monitors, Naomi, to look after her. Naomi gives her an "acceptable" nickname because it's better to pick what others call you then to have them call you something worse. Naomi is good to her and treats her almost like a friend and it's not just because Sam bribes her. The years pass and more things happen in Rachel's life, some good and some bad. [Reviewer's Note: a character in this book, Amelia, is given special treatment because she has long, beautiful red hair. I, too, have always have had long red hair, but I have not received special treatment for it. From fifth grade to middle school, I was teased for it, until I took a hardback book, corner-side pointed out, punched Scott Baker in the stomach with it. Guys wanted to date blondes, not red-heads. In college, I discovered men who felt differently, and I admit, that now, I am a bit vain about my hair. But I have never forgotten the teasing or the seeming obsession by the world for blondes].This is an incredible book. Is Dr. Solomon a Dr. Mengele? She thinks a bit like him, but what she does (and Dr. Hess for that matter), while inexcusable, is nothing compared to what Mengele did. Rachel wants an apology, but it does not seem that she is going to get it. She is given an opportunity to work the night shift where it's just her and one other nurse and she has already been holding back on the amount of morphine she has been giving Solomon for days. Now she is in control. She has the power. She can cause Solomon to suffer and then kill her for what she has done to her. But is Rachel capable of such an act? Can she really do this? The question you find yourself asking is what would you do. And the answer is not an easy one.QuotesGloria wrote in our shifts, twelve hours on every other day, extra days off popping up as unpredictably as Jewish holiday.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan # 8 p 30)“You listen to me now,” Mrs. Giovanni said… “Nothing is your fault. Never think that again. God can see inside you, right into your soul, and He knows you did nothing wrong. Remember that, Rachel, if you ever feel alone or afraid.” Looking at the C-ray images, Rachel imagined this was what God saw when he looked at her. Where on the radiograph, she wondered, did it show right from wrong?--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan # 8 p 90)When Rachel hung her towel and stepped under a showerhead, the new girl realized with a thrill she’d spotted something more valuable than an equal: someone worse off than herself.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan # 8 p 146) We snorted in unison, the universal sound of nurses who know better than the doctors whose orders we follow.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 168)That’s what it was like for me, killing myself to be first just so I’d be in a position to capitalize on the stupidity of others.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 172)Delayed reaction most likely. You had a very upsetting experience. I’ll keep you here for a couple of days so you can rest up. We’ll say its mononucleosis if anyone asks.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 176)She worked through the glossary letter by letter, abscess to xanthin. In bed at night, she’d run her finger down a column in the index and choose a disease to read about: bilious fever, creeping pneumonia, hookworm, mumps, palsy, typhoid. Bacillus tuberculosis, at twenty-six pages, put her to sleep for a week.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 181)Rachel remembered reading in Nurse Dreyer’s copy of Essentials of Medicine that treatment for the disease consisted of rest, rich food, fresh air, sunlight, and, if possible, freedom from worry. She wondered how someone with tuberculosis could not be worried.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 288)The white people, they think Indians and Chinese are both dirty, no matter how clean we make their shirts.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 306)If good only came to those who deserved it, the world would be a bleak place.--Kim van Alkemade (Orphan #8 p 336)

A lovely-but-sorta-sad story. It was really interesting to get a look into parts of history that are usually ignored or forgotten about -- in this case, especially, medical experiments performed on children by "good" people in the name of progress.

Rachel is a very sympathetic main characters, with all she had to suffer through. And her struggle about whether or not she should seek revenge on the woman who wronged her as a child rang very true.

This is a heartbreaking, beautifully written book centered around a woman named Rachel, a nurse at Manhattan's Old Hebrews Home. When a new patient is brought in, Rachel recognizes her as the doctor who performed medical experiments on her in an orphanage when she was a child. Faced with this knowledge, Rachel looks back over her life, reckoning with the decisions she made and the decisions that were made for her.

Orphan Number Eight I stopped at page 100. I loved how it started - her childhood, how she ended up at the orphanage, and her experience there, but then it changed directions and I lost interest. Once the story changed to her adulthood and her nursing career, it got boring. Maybe it got interesting again and I missed it. I don't know. What I do know is that this wasn't what I was expecting and it left me feeling disappointed.

This is an interesting, flawed work of historical fiction about an orphaned girl who is subjected to unethical medical experiments in the 1920s while living in a New York City orphanage. As an adult, she finds her herself the nurse of the very doctor who experimented on her. It's an interesting premise, ready-made for book discussions, yet the moral dilemma posed by the situation isn't really the center of the book - indeed, the book has so many different threads that there doesn't seem to be any center at all. The prose and especially the dialog is often clumsy and unconvincing. It was a fast read, and I liked the main character, Rachel. I'm guessing that the author will polish her craft a bit and give us a better book on her second round.

A great historical fiction read, this really drew me in with the change of narrative through time. An orphan that was used in scientific experiments is now confronted with the offending doctor, who is under her care in a hospice ward. The journey of acknowledging and trying to heal the young girl inside who was abused, is an interesting look on the things that haunt us, while giving a historical perspective.

Based on a real life story, this tale ping pongs back and forth from 1919 - 1950's. Tragically, four year old Rachel and her six year old brother became orphans when their mother discovered their father's indiscretion and impregnation of a young , unmarried co-worker. As their mother confronted the father, a knife and anger brought about an accidental slit which led to the death of their mother.The children are taken to the Hebrew Orphans Asylum in New York City. Deloused and hair cut dramatically, Rachel's experience worsens as a new female radiologist Dr. Mildred Solomon is bent on becoming at the top of the ranks in breakthrough techniques using a newly discovered mode called radiology. Originally, unknown consequences occurred as a result of repeated exposure; the sin is that Dr. Solomon continued these radiological experiments long after children lost their hair and experienced compromised immune systems. Rachel was told to be a good girl and to allow Dr. Solomon to strap her to a table while exposing her to large doses of radiation.Fast forward to 1954 when Rachel has survived, bald, and cancer ridden, and since leaving the home, became a nurse. Fate placed Dr. Solomon, now elderly and filled with cancer, in the hands of Rachel Rabinowitz. When confronted with the repercussions of Dr. Solomon's callous treatment, there is no apology. Insisting on calling Rachel Orphan #8, Dr. Solomon notes that she too has cancer and Rachel should feel sorry for her.Now that Dr. Solomon is in Rachel's care, she turns the table and slowly, intentionally deprives her patient of the necessary Morphine needed.This would have been an excellent book except that the sub plots and stories seemed to have so very little to do with the primary story. The book started well, but mid way meandered into boredom. I kept putting the book down with the intention of finding another. Yet, I was drawn to finish the story of Rachel and Dr. Solomon.I wish this debut novel would have been tightly written. Following the path of Rachel and her sexuality wasn't germane to the story. If there was a connection, the author failed to clearly make a case for it.Two and 1/2 stars.

I had this book for a while and just now got around to picking it up and reading it. The beginning started out really good. It grabbed my interest and I was ready for more. To be honest when I read the summary for this book I thought that the experiments that Dr. Mildred Solomon was conducting would be like Dr. Arthur Arden from American Horror Story season two, Asylum. Thank goodness it was not that horrible but still I can't imagine having to endure the things that Rachel did at such a young age. The even greater challenge was how Rachel reacted when the tables were turned with Dr. Solomon as her patient. The flash back moments where good and I thought the transfer from the past to the present was smooth. They were brought up at the right moments within the story. However the story itself grew somewhat stale for me about midway and I stayed middle of the road the rest of the way until the end. Yet, reading about the true events that inspired this book and seeing the pictures at the back of this book was very sad and had me intrigued.

Really enjoyed this book. We follow Rachel a 4 year old orphan placed in the Hebrew Infant home . She grows up there becoming orphan #8 in X-ray experiments where she looses her hair and it never comes back. She is looked after at a distance by her brother and a few good people like Niomi.We follow Rachel as an adult where she is a nurse in the Old Hebrew Home and winds up with Dr Soloman as a patient, the woman who had experimented on her. The novel brings young Rachel up to date with adult Rachel as she discovers and learns to deal with her cancer diagnosis.

The author says that when she tells people this book is about Jewish orphans and medical experimentation they automatically assume it is set in Europe during the Holocaust. You can see why people would jump to that conclusion because we don’t think that anyone except fascist extremists would experiment on human beings. However, this story is set in New York City and the doctors doing the experimentation were Jewish themselves. The book is fiction but it is based upon true incidents some of which came from the author’s family.Rachel Rabinowitz was only four years old when her life was changed forever. During an argument between her parents her father nicked her mother’s jugular vein and she died. Although it was an accident the father was afraid he would be convicted of murder and he fled. Rachel and her six-year-old brother, Sam, were bundled off to a Hebrew child agency. Rachel was sent to an infant’s home but Sam was too old so he went to a Hebrew orphanage. At the infant’s home Rachel came under the ministrations of a woman doctor, Doctor M. Solomon. Dr. Solomon was doing her residency in radiology and she needed to do some research. It was common in the infants’ home to use the children for experiments. She decided to explore whether X-rays applied to the tonsils could negate the need for an operation to remove them (an operation that was routinely done on orphans when they arrived in the system). The eight children used in this experiment received different doses of X-rays and then their tonsils were removed to see if they had been affected. Rachel was the eighth child in the experiment and she received the highest dose of radiation. Years later when Rachel is a nurse on a terminal illness ward Dr. Solomon is admitted into her care with bone cancer. Rachel sees her chance to conduct an experiment of her own on the doctor.There are probably many more examples of this sort of thing that are undocumented. A few years ago I read the gripping The Immortal Story of Henrietta Lacks which tells of cancerous cells that were harvested from a poor black woman. Those cells went on to become the HeLa cell line which have been used in many medical procedures and experiments. Henrietta was not herself the subject of experiments but she was not asked for permission nor was she compensated for the use of her cells. Even when I was growing up it was common practice to sterilize children with Down’s Syndrome. Today the North American protocols for using humans in medical experiments are elaborate but one can’t help but wonder if in more totalitarian regimes human subjects are used for experimentation, especially if they are from a group that is perceived as a lower class.This is a book that would be great for a book club because there are many issues that could be discussed.

Interesting story based on the Hebrew Orphans Asylum of New York set in the 1950's. The story is based on the jewish ran home for orphans where her grandfather and uncle were raised and her Great Grandmother Fannie Berger ran the Reception area of the home. Fictional characters Rachel & Sam Rabinowicz, orphaned by the murder of their mother and abandonment of their father are sent to the Hebrew Orphans home and separated where Rachel is sent to Infant home as she was under 6 years old. At the orphans home Rachel was subjected to experimental X-ray treatments which left her with a life long case of alopecia marking her for life. Once Rachel is old enough to join Sam, they are still separated within the community of over 1000 children and Sam's promise to protect Rachel becomes more difficult as they mature to teenagers and an incident at the Purmir Dance causes Sam to run away. Rachel eventually discovers where Sam has gone and thinking he has found their father, steals money and flees the orphan home to join him in Colorado. As her expectations of a happy reunion with her father and family unravel, once again Rachel finds herself alone and fending for herself. Meeting up with the Cohen/Abram Family she finds a new purpose and begins her medical career as a nursing aide with help of Dr Abrams. Fast forward to her return to New York to find Naomi and make amends for taking her savings, she ends up working at the Hebrew Nursing Home where a Doctor Mildred Soloman, the docotor who administered the x-rays on her so many years before becomes her patient. Memories flash back and she learns that the treatments administered to her were not for a disease she had but as experimental, coming to terms with her current medical issues and the woman who was responsible for her life long health issues, she is faced with seeking revenge or forgiving the woman who shows no remorse for what she has done. Very interesting story, the back of the book gives details on the author's family and how she was inspired to write this story.

ORPHAN #8 by Kim Van AlkemadeWhen the book opens Rachel (orphan 8) is a tantrum throwing 4 year-old. At the end she is a middle- aged spinster disappointed with life. Rachel has the misfortune soon after her mother’s death to be the “material” for a woman doctor seeking to make her way in a man’s world. The repercussions of the experiment color all of Rachel’s life. Told in alternating chapters switching between the young Rachel and the middle-aged Rachel, we understand why she is disappointed. We also know that she has had many opportunities most orphans never have and Rachel has failed to appreciate. Rachel is creatively and skillfully written, unfortunately, we see all the remaining characters through the prism of Rachel. These other characters remain flat throughout and the book ends too early. I would have liked another chapter or two to see the “redeemed” Rachel if, indeed, she is. Book group will find a number of topics – orphanages, betrayal, family loyalty, medical care/experimentation, women’s opportunities, assisted suicide, lesbianism, charity, revenge – to discuss. 3 of 5 stars

I chose to request this book from Librarything's early reviewers because I had read The Orphan Train and I was interested to read more along these lines. There are multiple story lines in this book that help keep the story moving along quickly. For me it is important to learn new things while reading and this book did not disappoint there. Kim touches on several controversial subjects that if you are open minded keep you wondering what you might do in the same situation. Orphan #8 is a thought provoking book that will make for a great book club discussion.

There is a hell of a lot going on in this book. In the early twentieth century, four year old Rachel and her brother are put in a Jewish orphanage after their father "accidentally" kills their mother. In the orphanage, Rachel is subjected to a series of x-ray tests that will have significant effects on her life, the most obvious being her permanent baldness. Despite all the odds, she does pretty well for herself eventually becoming a nurse. Rachel had pretty well blocked out her childhood, but when one of the patients she's treating turns out to be a doctor that tested on her, it all comes rushing back. She is forced to confront her past and come to terms with how it is affecting her future. This book does a great job illustrating problems that minorities (Jews, orphans, women, lesbians) faced in the first half of the twentieth century and does a great job of outlining the historical basis for the book in the afterward. Dark, but enlightening.

This is a fictional story based loosely on actual events that occurred in New York City in 1919 and beyond. Rachel and her brother Sam, children of Jewish parents, are traumatized early in the story when their mother dies suddenly and their father deserts them, leaving them in the care of the Jewish orphan system. At a young age, Rachel is subject to a series of experimental x-ray procedures, resulting in some long-lasting effects. Fast forward to the 1950's, where Rachel is working as a nurse in a Jewish hospice home. There, she comes face-to-face with the doctor who subjected her to the x-rays she had as a child. She then must decide if she wants to take revenge.This was an interesting historical fiction novel in and of itself. The author has some familial ties to the real events of this book, and the afterward following the story is enlightening, highlighted by some actual photographs of the time period. But while it was interesting, I didn't feel it was written in a way to really capture the reader. Additionally, there was a side plot exploring Rachel's eventual self-discovery of herself as a lesbian, and while I can give or take plots such as that, in this case, it really didn't seem to add anything to the main story and was a distraction, not really fitting in with the main story. Had that been excluded & had the writing been a little more engaging, I would've rated this higher.

What did I think?I wanted to give this book more stars but I had a few issues. While someone else said, the book was well researched and the story was told well enough, I just got bored a bit somewhere around the middle. I believe the characters were developed just enough although there was room for improvement there too.I have a problem with "her". This big secret through the whole book. At one point I wondered who "she" was and thought I knew but was wrong according to the story only to find out that a small paragraph had me all screwed up. And there were a few typos.I will say the first 25% of this book was so hard for me to read probably because it was written the best; I was appalled.I will recommend.Thanks to LibraryThing and William Morrow for giving me a chance to read and review it.

Hurt and fear, are not things we want children to experience. We don't expect healthy children to be test subjects in medical experiments that can physically harm them for life. Kim Van Alkemade's ORPHAN 8, an historical novel, is based on New York City's Home for Hebrew Infants and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, where in the mid-1900's into the 1920's children were used as test subjects for a number of medically questionable studies. Radiation exposure left some children bald for life and probably gave them serious physical side effects that may have caused other issues in later life.The author's Great-Grandmother worked at the Asylum and raised (or at least saw) her two sons while she was employed at the facility. Van Alkemade was fascinated by the stories. When looking through the Home's records she found a reference to buying wigs for children who'd had x-rays, and thus it became the basis for her novel.The novel is fascinating for it's writing and the journey the reader takes with Rachel, the main character who goes from terrified child to adult. From little Rachel at home, to a scared child in an overwhelming institutional environment, to an adult suddenly faced with the woman who experimented upon her body.Now the tables have turned and Rachel is the medical professional. She has the opportunity as the nurse assigned to a case to see the physician who scarred her for life - what will Rachel do to the elderly woman now in her care? The ethics at play are almost unbearable - the psychological nuance between the two women, one elderly, quite ill and unrepentant, the other still emotionally fragile from her childhood.It's a book that is as intriguing as it is readable. Well written and fascinating, it draws the reader into the shadows of Rachel's thirst for revenge and her opportunity for forgiveness. How she chooses, and what she chooses make for a captivating novel. I was pleased to review this novel thanks to Harper Collins for the free book!

I didn’t feel like either the current or past storyline was fleshed out enough, at times it felt disjointed and I think it was because of not knowing enough about the characters. However I did find the story fascinating I never knew anything about these test done at orphanages’ also after reading some stories on the authors website I really wish she would have went deeper into these characters I feel like she just brushed the surface and I wish I knew more.I hated the “romance” aspect of this book every time she grabbed someone’s face and pulled them into a kiss I was no longer in the story and Rachel’s sexual orientation had absolutely nothing to do with it , if she had been grabbing men’s faces I would have felt exactly the same. To me there was no reason for these it added nothing to the story and in fact detracted from it.I can’t put my finger on what it is I don’t like about the narration, I’m not sure if it’s the tone, cadence or accent that I don’t like but there were times when the narration really annoyed me and other times I didn’t mind it. I am not sure who narrated what either so it may be that I like one narrator over the other but I am just not sure.This book was okay; I liked the storyline about the Orphans Home even though I wish I knew more. I guess in the end this book just fell flat for me.2 ½ Stars