Christina Shea

This review is also published at http://thebookaholiccat.com

Eva Farkas had a tough life. During Second World War at age five she was smuggled out of Hungary to Romania in a flour sack. In Romania she was forced to get the new false identity of Anca Balaj and leave everything about Eva Farkas behind. She was supposed to live with her paternal aunt and her husband for a couple of months, until her parents came for her, but they never came, her mother was capture in Hungary and later died in the train that was transporting her to a concentration camp and her father killed himself.
Now Anca/Eva has a new identity, new language, new country, new culture and a new family. She grew up with her aunt and uncle as normal as was possible under her circumstances and the circumstances of the time. Anca learned that she had to study very hard to become somebody in a communist country. She excelled in school and was selected to go to the university and from there on she tried to do her best with what she was given in life, good or bad without matter. But Anca always felt as an intruder in a country that wasn’t hers, always worrying that somebody would find out of her illegal documents or even worst discover that she was a Jew passing as Christian.

Smuggled was my first book by Christina Shea. I really didn’t know what to expect from it and to be honest I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did.

We met Eva/Anca as a very young child in the early 1940s and see her grow page by page until she is a woman of 50 in the 1990s. I liked that Eva/Anca really felt like child when she was one. Her behavior and reasoning was the expected from a young girl, and when the years start to pass and Eva/Anca is growing we see the normal changes time has on a person, her personality evolves and adapts making the changes felt real and believable.
Eva/Anca has lived through so many difficult situations. When you think life is settling for her, something happens and changes her life drastically, this happens more than once. She just experiences glimpses of happiness throughout her life. Eva/Anca is living during tough times, the Romania after Second World War is no a nice place to be. The communism under the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu was one of the worst in the whole world and she lived through those times.
Eva/Anca was always looking for that place call home; even though she has been “the Romanian Anca” for the majority of her life she was never able to really grasp that identity, she felt she didn’t belonged anywhere and after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 she seizes the opportunity to return to Hungary to discover her roots.
I loved her amazement when entering Hungary, how she finds everything so enticing and new. Through her eyes I could feel her awe at discovering new things. Simple things for us now days as pavement roads, bananas or a purse with the coke brand imprinted on it, but for her, a refugee who lived all her life in a impoverished communist country all those new things are magical and alluring.

The secondary characters are shadows compare to her, they came to her life for a reason, sometimes good ones sometimes not so much. Their interactions made her the woman she becomes, but none of them really shines in the story, even tough I would have liked to learn more about what happened to some of them in the future.

I had a little problem with the pace, sometimes “years” drag a long for a while, when others flew with barely a mention. It also took me a little bit to get into it, this was because at the beginning the book is told from different points of view but sometimes it was not easy to differentiate when there was a change and I was seeing a new character’s POV. This may be because I read an ARC and the final book is edited better… I hope that is the case.

I really like Smuggled, notwithstanding that the end is a satisfying one this is not a nice book, definitely not one of those love in the clouds books, is harsh and real, set in times that make me feel glad and lucky I was born when and where I was born. Wars are not pretty and seeing all the “side effects” a war has on a society years after is finished would make you been thankful for your current life.

I recommend Smuggled to readers with interest in historical fiction and adult fiction. I hope to read more books by Christina Shea.… (mais)

Beginning in WWII and ending in the early 1990s, Smuggled tells the life story of Eva Farkas, and the story of Hungary and Romania under communist rule. Eva was smuggled out of Hungary thanks to her wealthy father; her mother, his mistress, was Jewish, making Eva a possible target. Eva is sent to her father's sister and her husband in Romania. Thanks to forged papers and a talent with languages, she is able to survive the war and get an education. Her story doesn't end there; nor does life get much easier after the war.

What drew me to this book was the WWII setting. This era has long been my favorite historical time period to read about and study, perhaps surpassed in recent years by the Vietnam War era but perhaps not. Anyway, the WWII aspects, primarily of Eva's smuggling, were definitely really interesting. Even more intriguing, though, was reading the story of her life in Romania, of the myriad terrible things she had to do to survive.

Although the first third of the book details Anca's childhood, this is most definitely not a book intended for young readers. The themes are dark and only get darker as Anca grows up. Speaking of that, be forewarned that this story is gritty and painful and violent at times. It involves scenes of rape and prostitution. History isn't always pretty, which, I think, people generally know, but this is a side that isn't always as focused on. Eva/Anca (her Romanian name) has such an amazing spirit to have made it through all that she did. Despite all of the awful things she goes through, she retains the ability to trust and to love, which is incredibly inspiring. Nor does her character seem at all fake or overly optimistic; she's just a really strong person.

If you love books about the war or about life under the Soviet regime, you should not miss this one. It's beautifully written and completely fascinating from the first pages.… (mais)

Review for Author Exposure: http://www.authorexposure.com/2011/12/book-review-smuggled-by-christina-shea.htm...

"...From the bottom of the sack she looked up at her mother's face, a grave moon. Mama! But she shouldn't speak or cry out. She must hide herself. She carefully pulled her broken hand out of its sleeve, nestling it inside the coat..." (4)

Smuggled (July 2011) chronicles a remarkably well-written narrative of one young girl, whose cherished and privileged life in 1943 Budapest, Hungary is hastily transformed to an often bleak and seemingly forsaken ordinary village life in "Crisu", Romania. Beloved, cosseted five-year-old Eva, daughter of Eszter Farkas (Jewish) and Gyorgy Toth (Catholic) , puzzles over what possible personal transgression cast her from the loving arms of her mother to the dubiously undemonstrative household of her Auntie Kati and Uncle Illie, no longer Eva, but Anca Balaj. Even if Auntie Kati thought in Crisu it would bode well for an unanticipated child in their household to have such a deformity, Eva personally speculates that her physically deformed right hand, now almost useless, became too repugnant and appalling for Mama to bear.

Initially, Anca ostensibly conceals her cherished Hungarian memories by submitting to Auntie's daily demands to learn the Romanian language and performing the onerous chores expected of her. Eventually, she is accepted within this enigmatic household and village.

As Anca consistently reveals her headstrong resilience in her academic and personal life, political regimes and views spasmodically change and advance. A modernized Europe emerges and Anca prepares for its inevitable challenges. Anxious to return to her rightful birthplace, Anca searches not only for Eva, but also to reclaim her personal identity, lost by a loving mother's courageous foresight to save her only child.

To reveal Eva's innumerable passages through her often perilous, yet adventurous, milestones from the tender age of five to the wise fifty-year-old woman whose steadfast journey offers much to appreciate would be a disservice to any serious reader unfortunate enough to discard genuinely intimate glimpses of an intensely admirable life lived between a child's memory and a woman's struggle to reconcile how fate so easily alters one's future. Eva endures and survives, finds love and returns it. Just as Mama ensured her own safety, Eva rescues another child.

Christina Shea does not disappoint. Her unpretentious narrative enlightens and envelopes the reader with colorful witticisms to compensate for the inevitability of painful passages. Without a doubt, she is an author to remember and to watch.… (mais)

Smuggled spans 5 decades from 1943 to the 1990's. Below is an excerpt from my review with a link to the full review:
Eva Farkas was a normal rambunctious and fearless five year old, living in Budapest, Hungary during World War II. She begged for her mother, Eszter, to read one particular book to her every night, even though she knew the story by heart, but she got very upset with her mother for saying she should want to be like the mole in the book and stay hidden. Eva couldn’t understand why her mother insisted on that being an admirable quality when she, like most five-year-old girls, wanted to be the princess instead. In fact, Eva insisted she actually was a princess. To read the rest of my review, go to http://popcornreads.com/?p=1186… (mais)