Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I started reading this book with an obvious bias- I truly wanted to love it, partially because of the subject matter, but mostly because of the back-story: the life of author Irene Nemirovsky and how the manuscripts for this novel were discovered and then translated decades after she was killed in the Holocaust. In addition, while I usually try not to pay attention to critics' reviews and/or big buzz when it comes to novels, there was no avoiding it- this book is very highly hyped in the media, so when I started reading I truly thought "I am going to love this book".....but then I read it. This novel just wasn't for me, and I can't imagine it being as universally appealing as the reviews make it out to be. I think the "backstory" of the author's life and the discovery of the transcript and challenge of translating it would have made a much more interesting book than the novel itself. Without giving anything away, the novel opens with various character fleeing Paris amidst invasion from the Germans. While it is probably extremely realistic and it is unquestionably well-written (translated), I just could not connect with any of the characters and did not care what was happening to them. I thought it was extremely boring and lacked emotionality. I wonder if people liked the book more so because of the circumstances the author faced, as opposed to the actual novel itsef, since I just can't belive how so many people could possibly connect with it. I could only recommend it to those readers with a particular interest in this aspect of French history.