Zookeeper's Wife

Really interesting topic - the story of Antonina, the wife of the zookeeper of Warsaw Zoo during Nazi occupation, and how she and her husband used the zoo to shelter refugees and help Jews escape through the underground. Sounds like it should be a fascinating story written out, but sadly the writing is so dry and impersonal that it made what should have been an incredibly moving and important story really hard to stay engaged with. The author seems to have taken Antonina's memoirs and then retold them, dryly repeating the events second hand with commentary about Antonina and Jan's probable thoughts and actions at the time in such a detached manner that it makes the story seem very distant instead of close and personal.

If you can stick through the writing style, it really IS an incredible story of a family who took huge risks to help so many people, as well as the almost unbelievable amount of damage that was inflicted to Warsaw as Hitler tried to eliminate it entirely. Apparently this has been made into a movie, which might be a bit more approachable than the very detached style of narration.