Unfortunately, the story of Lily feels very vague and I was not able to find her to be a sympathetic character. Ruth spends her adult life trying to understand who she is, who her mother is and what her place is in her loving and supportive family.The characters of Ruth, her neighbour Ida and her daughter Elke, who keep Lily's secret are well fleshed out and interesting. The story is told from a number of different perspectives - the most interesting being that of her daughter, Ruth. Unable to live with her deception, Lily abandons her family. There are others who knew the real Lily Azerov and quickly surmise that this young woman is not Lily. Like many who survived the horrors of WW2, the young woman has taken over the identity of another who died during this time. Sol's brother, Nathan likes what he sees, however and steps in to become the bridegroom. Lily steps off the train in Montreal after the Holocaust to meet her future husband - he promptly rejects her. Who are you if everything you know about yourself is based on a deception? This is the story of Ruth - a young woman growing up in mid-century Montreal who was abandoned by her mother, Lily Azerov, three months after her birth. Finally, the ending felt thin and hollow. It really felt like the author had reread her childhood diaries (crushes, incidents with best friends, first contact with anti-semitism, dates, spending time with her aunt/cousins) and then incorporated another story ( a refugee's assumed identity after the war) around her childhood. The characters would do/think/see something that I felt would change the direction of their life, make it more interesting, and then that thread would be dropped. There was a lot of repetition, and the name dropping of places in Montreal was fun for me as an ex-Montrealer, but might leave those not familiar with the city wondering why one restaurant or street is different from another. The book just dragged, I found myself skimming even though I am trying to read slower than usual to make my summer stack of books last longer! The story could have been more interesting, the dialogue did not feel realistic, especially when immigrants give long passages of speech in perfect, highly literate English, and most of the story was told thru the perspective of a very dull young girl.I did not find the characters fully realized, and telling me over and over that a young girl has a crush on a boy, without ever making me understand why made me feel that the author presumed that I knew him and would 'just understand'.

The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler