My Mother's Wars
by Lillian Faderman

Mary (the name she is given in America) came to the United States, in 1914, at the age of seventeen from Latvia. She was sponsored by her sister and brother-in-law and lived with them for a while. Mary's goal is to be a dancer but that is not practical so she works in the New York Garment District with squalid conditions and measly pay. Bored with her life at home, she goes dancing every night with a friend from work. Her brother-in-law is scandalized by her behavior and kicks her out.
When Mary is thirty-five and still barely making ends meet, she falls in love with a man who is ten years younger than her. Marriage is what she wants but that will never happen (he's got a girl in every port). While her romance is going on, Mary frets about the rest of her family still in Latvia where the storm troopers and Hitler are moving towards. She wants to get them out but doesn't have the amount of money that is needed to do that monumental task. 
Lillian Faderman (the name should actually be spelled as Federman) wrote her mother's story because Mary was illiterate in both reading and writing English. It's a quick read (three days for me) and interesting enough but they style is not very good and she just replicates what her mother told her even though, apparently, Lillian did historical research. 
The most annoying thing about the book is the extensive, over-the-top use of similes. I almost quit reading early on because of them but decided to grin and bear it and finish to the end.