I bought Julie Orringer‘s first novel with a gift card from mein Schatz as a get-well gift shortly after getting laid up in bed for awhile.  Not only did The Invisible Bridge garner rave reviews from friends, but with 600+ pages, it promised to keep me entertained for a good long while.  And that it did.

Really, the best words I can use to describe the story are words like: epic, sweeping, heart wrenching, joyful.  Somehow Orringer manages to connect the worlds of Paris, Budapest, architecture, ballet, Judaism and family together in the most beautiful way to tell an impossible love story spanning the course of World War II.  Every single character, no matter how small a role, is brought fully to life.  Even if you think you’ve read all the books you can handle about this period in history, you have probably never read one quite like this.  It’s really a tale of a family trying to hold on to each other, as well as on to what it means to be Hungarian.

Gorgeously written, and certainly one of my top books of the year.