Ugh, I'm so iffy over what to rate this!!! It was a good book, butbutbutbut... *growls* Let's get on with it, okay? 
 The Good 
 -History. Oh my goodness, I can tell that Breslin did her research! She mentioned a lot of camps I remember from history class (and *cough* other historical fiction books), like Dachau and Auschwitz. And whatever-this-concentration-camp-was-called, because I'm not even going to try to spell it. Thereisenstadt? Something like that... 
 -Characters. Most of the characters were pretty good. BUT MY FAVORITES WERE THE MINOR CHARACTERS!!!!! My absolute favorite is definitely Helen. She was so awesome, and she made me want to cry. After her, definitely Joseph and Rand Grossman. 
 -The plot. This was based off of the story of Esther, and I am thrilled to say that I pegged all the characters right away and I got it right. BUT THE PLOT. Oh my gravy, it was such a great twist on the classic Bible story. IT WAS AWESOME. 
 -Violence. This is in the good, only because of the time period, okay? I'm not some bloodthirsty monster (unless you ask my own characters). Kate Breslin accurately and heartbreakingly conveyed the torture to the Jews, and all of the violence during WWII. It made me want to cry. Or kill Hitler. 
 The Bad 
 -The romance. I'm going to say this right from the start. I did NOT like the romance in this book. From the beginning, it was based off of the sensual stuff like appearance and the sort of "instant connection" type thing. Eventually it kind of changed to loving each others' personalities, but there was still a lot of kissing and "her smooth skin" and stuff like that. There's other stuff which I'll mention later, but moving on... 
 (view spoiler)[-Marvel Syndrome. I'm not going to say WHO, but it really sort-of annoyed me that someone came back from the not-dead. NOBODY EVEN CHECKED TO MAKE SURE HE WAS DEAD!!! (hide spoiler)] 
 The Ugly 
 There is a LOT of kissing. Most of the romance is also sensual, talking about Hadassah's body shape or her neck or whatever. There are a lot of hints of the villains wanting to take Hadassah to bed with them, and she tells Aric several times that she won't be his mistress. There's mentions of being naked (at Dachau), and she may or may not have been naked in one scene, with two men in the room. There's a lot of violence as well, mostly torture/killing of Jews. Mention of the "Krematorium" and gas. 
 This book was really, really good plot-wise, but it had a lot of things in it (romance) that I could have done without. But a pretty good book overall.