Counting Lost Stars: A Powerful Story of Hope, Survival, and Love During Wartime Chaos

Counting Lost Stars by Kim van Alkemade is a dual timeline story following two women: Rita Klein in 1960 NYC and Cornelia Vogel in 1940s The Hague. Both are dealing with life-altering events (we meet Rita in a home for unwed mothers and Cornelia during the Nazi occupation of Holland). While these events don’t necessarily connect the two women, they propel each forward into unexpected directions that will eventually bring the two stories together. Interestingly enough, given the timeframes we’re in and all the events and themes presented by this story, what actually connects the two stories and the two women is technology, in the form of a bygone computer system (namely the Hollerith system that utilized punch cards) that the Nazis used to identify the Jews and suspected Jews in ensure they succeeded in their drive towards the Final Solution (eradication of all Jews). This story, composed of seemingly disparate characters and events, comes to life in the hands of a skilled writer like van Alkemade. The settings, both big and small, and the characters (not just the two central ones but also Jacob Nassy, the young man, a holocaust survivor, who Rita encounters and falls for, and Leah Blom, the young Jewish neighbor of Cornilia’s who ignites a firestorm of first love for both of them) and the intricacies of the technology are all wonderfully realized. The research here, especially regarding the computer system – what it does and how it works – is astounding and could have been…

Overall, I enjoyed reading this story. It takes an interesting approach to World War II Holocaust history, taking a different route than other stories that I’ve read. While you do know that people are dying, I feel like this story focuses less on death and more on survival than most Holocaust novels. This book takes place in alternating chapters, mostly alternating between World War II (1941-1944) and 1960. Toward the end of the novel, the story is all set in 1960. While this book doesn’t focus on death as much as many other similar novels, it does address some issues that might be controversial, especially for the time periods when this story takes place. There are some same-sex intimate relationships happening both in 1941 and in 1960, which would have been pretty scandalous at the time. There’s an unmarried woman who has recently given birth in the 1960 part of the novel. As a warning to readers, one character attempts suicide. While we don’t get the graphic details, it might be difficult for some readers to handle. The main reason that this is not a 5-star book for me is that things feel too happy. Maybe, that sounds weird, but it just feels like things fall into place a little too easily considering the subject matter of the book. For example, everyone who knows about the same-sex relationships seems 100% fine with them, which really doesn’t feel realistic for that time period. I don’t want to ruin the book, so I won’t go into details with this, but there are also…