Pat D. (pat0814) reviewed on 9/26/2015 + 379 more book reviews

Orphan Number 8 is a fictional account of the life of Rachel Rabinowitz. When they were very young, Rachel and her brother, Sam, witnessed the death of their mother in an altercation with their father. The father fled to avoid prosecution, leaving them officially labeled as orphans and remanded to the custody of the Orphaned Hebrews Home in Manhattan. Through a series of unfortunate events, Rachel and Sam ended up spending the next ten years in an institutional environment. Rachel and other children were the subjects in a series of experiments by Dr. Mildred Solomon, which left Rachel with alopecia and, as an adult, diagnosed with cancer from massive radiation. As an adult, Rachel became a nurse and worked in a nursing home where Dr. Solomon arrived as a terminally ill patient with bone cancer. Ironically, Dr. Solomon's fate lay in Rachel's hands as Rachel was forced to make life-altering decisions that vacillated between revenge and compassion. Rachel's life is filled with heartbreak and moments of courage that most of us will never be able to comprehend. One Hebrew phrase struck me as particularly meaningful: "tikkun olam", which is the belief that it is everyone's responsibility to help someone else, for the good of us all. That is the message I will take from this book.

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