Great book for when going through the transformation to adolescence. Although there is distinct language, it is very funny. I read it when I was
first 13, now I'm 22 and I can't stop reading it at least every two years.

Okay. So I really love this book. I remember reading it in eight grade and not being able to put it down and now almost fifteen years later I still enjoy the book. If you like Judy Blume you'll love Pilcer's Teen Angel!

Sonia Pilcer's important, provocative and caustic "The Holocaust Kid" defies easy categorization. This novel is at once a profound contemplation of the Holocaust, a wickedly twisted view of the responsibilities and burdens of being a child of Holocaust survivors and a withering examination of the American Jewish sanctification of Holocaust memory and its attendant mandate of remembrance. Told through the beleaguered, angry and sarcastic voice of Zosha Palovsky, "The Holocaust Kid" provides important insights into the lives of children of survivors, the 2G generation. Zosha's emotional turmoil, her anger at being held hostage to a defining event she never experiences directly, but only derivatively, and her unflinching insistence on carving out her own identity give the novel its purchase.

The Holocaust looms as the defining nature of Zosha's life. Her mother, the omnipresent and maddeningly oppressive Genia, and her father, laconic and intellectually inquisitive Heniek, provide their daughter with the foundation of Holocaust identity, which so informs Zosha's sensibility. Forever aware of her responsibility as a replacement for so much that was lost, she laments relinquishing her own needs and wants. She is warned that she "must never forget, not even for a moment. Because I lived when so many died."

Yet, what is she to remember? Furtively cleaning her daughter's room, Genia discovers one of Zosha's essays. Zosha examines the Hebrew injunction to remember, zachor. Yet her daughter is confused as to what she is mandated to sanctify. "Remember what? Lives exitnguished?...Childhoods, entire countries and cultures lost?" Zosha recoils at the unfairness of this obligation and the impossible enormity of its requirements. Her father has "numbers," her mother "nightmares;" Zosha is left with their "fierce, anxious love."

"Kid" scrapes against our preconceptions of being a child of survivors. When Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel proclaims that their is a "privileged generation," that 2G children are the "justification" of their parents' will to survive the unspeakable, Pilcer bitterly questions those assumptions. If Zosha's life is so presumably sanctified by memory, why does remembrance bring discomfort and not peace?

The daughter angrily denounces her parents' captivity by memory, their stubborn refusal to let loose and recreate a genuine new life in America. Her parents memories served only to increase pain. Their "tearful retelling of loss" reinforced their captivity to genocide. Zosha bristles with anger at her parents' double standards, their inconsistencies, phony rituals and use of Judaism as a sword raised to compel obedience. Even the Holocaust becomes but the ultimate parental means to subordinate Zosha.

Rejecting their wish that she become "normal, like Daddy and me," Zosha sets sail to discover her own identity. Though competently chronicled, this quest loses its tautness due to the structure of the novel. "Kid" seems to be composed of disparate narrative episodes, and, indeed, many of the chapters have appeared in numerous journals during the past decade. Though not every novel needs to appear seamless, "Kid" suffers from abrupt, disjointed changes in time.

This sole structural criticsm, however, should not dissuade readers from tackling this morbidly fascinating, intellectually provocative and psychologically revealing short novel. "The Holocaust Kid" succeeds on levels which few authors have even attempted to explore. It is an audacious, explosive and, in places, outrageous examination of the impact of the Holocaust on survivors and their children. Its voice is new, fresh and memorable.

This is a collection not to be missed. It is about family, and how pain, heartbreak, frustration, obsession, and courage may be transmitted--like genes--from one generation to another. Because it is written as fiction instead of documentary history, emotions are its primary focus. Pilcer has worked the difficult magic of re-creating those emotions, raised to the nth degree. Out of fierce love, Zosha, the daughter of survivors, remembers with and for her parents--against her will, sometimes things they would all rather forget. Parents and child together bridge the gap between old world and new, where Zosha's son--the adored grandchild--may at last be able to forget. Or to remember without being destroyed. These are stories of hope and rebirth. When I finished them, I wept once again for the dead and the survivors of the defining tragedy of the 20th century. Makes a wonderful Holiday gift.

I can not convey to you how much I loved this book. I have a strange fascination with the Holocaust; I never knew why and still don't, so it was obvious that I would read this, too. I've read Fragments (discovered to be a farce), Night, I Will Bear Witness, and Schindler's List. They were all great books about the Holocaust, but this book gave the subject a different dimension.

The book is from what Pilcer calls the 2K survivor's point of view. This in and of itself is rather thought-provoking. Never once before did I think about what the children of survivors must endure, the survivor's guilt and accompanying problems. At one point she writes something about irritating her mother and hasn't she suffered enough already. There is much food for thought in this book for those with a hungry brain.

The format of the book, too, is interesting. It's a series of short stories with the same characters, all interrelated. I thought it was strange at first, but in the end a refreshing approach. It's also nice to go back to the stories and read them out of order, to enjoy them for their own sake (the favorites) because they stand well all on their own.

There is a distinct honesty to her writing style, very straight forward. Although the situations in the book do not necessarily warrant suspense, she manages to generate suspense in the reader. For example, one story is titled "Paskudnyak." Underneath the title is the definition in italics "From Polish/Ukranian, a man or woman who is nasty, mean, odious, contemptible, rotten, vulgar, insensitive, and dirty." Immediately I wanted to find out who the Paskudnyak in the story was (and I'm sure you want to, now, too!). And when the doors slam shut in the cleverly titled "Trauma Queen," I immediately edged my way to the edge of my sofa's cushion, dying to know what happened after that.

The book is at once a riotous laugh and a poignant weep. I could not put it down until I closed it, stared at it--completely read cover to cover--on my table and decided it needed a second, closer read and read it again. It seemed disrespectful to the subject matter the way I hungrily devoured it during the first frenzied reading (two nights). I can only recall seven other books I read a second time right after closing them (I read a LOT, so that's a very, very low number!)

The important thing to realize is that you don't have to be Jewish nor a World War II buff to appreciate the literature. You could be anyone because she makes her characters' experiences accessible to anyone and everyone. It's not JUST about being a 2K survivor. It's about being a human. In the end I identified with her (the character, Zosha) on so many levels.

The other thing to remember is that it may be hard to separate Zosha from Sonia (the author). On the back cover it says that the picture on the cover is in fact the writer. If you visit the website and read the "about the author" area, you will find that she has a lot in common with Zosha, that she WAS born in a displaced persons camp in Germany and IS a 2K survivor. But where will you find the book? In the fiction section of the book store. I discussed this book closely with other people who couldn't seem to separate the truth from the fiction. Just keep that in mind.

I think I read on the website that she received like forty (or some insane number of) rejection notices from publishers for this book. I'm glad she believed in it enough to pursue its publication. It's a fabulous book and I hope you'll read it, too.

if you are nostaligic for New York City in the eighties i reccomend this boo, though there are better. If your trying hard to find this book for any other reason, don't bother. The monlogues are contrived and the plot immature and predictable. otherwise, an okay book.