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Book Review: Hitler’s Forgotten Children by Ingrid von Oelhafen and Tim Tate
Summary:
Created by Heinrich Himmler, the Lebensborn program abducted as many as half a million children from across Europe. Through a process called Germanization, they were to become the next generation of the Aryan master race in the second phase of the Final Solution.
Ingrid is shocked to discover in high school that her parents are actually her foster parents and struggles, like many in post-war Germany, to get official documentation of who she is. When the Red Cross contacts her, she slowly starts to realize her connection to the Lebensborn program. Though the Nazis destroyed many Lebensborn records, Ingrid unearths rare documents, including Nuremberg trial testimony about her own abduction.
Review:
There can sometimes be this misconception that society immediately dealt with all of the fall-out of WWII. Germany does do an admirable job of directly confronting genocide and fascism. But, as this book demonstrates, not everything was in fact dealt with right away. There were intentions to, but other things like the Cold War got in the way. One of the things that got swept under the rug until the early 2000s (!!) was the Lebensborn program.
Ingrid speaks eloquently about the rumors in the 90s especially about an SS “breeding program.” I actually remember hearing these rumors. Ingrid does a good job of describing how she felt realizing she might have a connection to Lebensborn in the face of these rumors. In fact, there was no “breeding program” aspect to Lebensborn. At least, not in the way the rumor mill said it. Women were not kept in breeding houses with SS members sent to them. But women were encouraged to sleep with SS members, regardless of their own coupled or marital state, to make more Aryan babies for Hitler. Where Lebensborn came in was that if a pregnant woman and the father of the baby fit the Aryan bill sufficiently, she could come to Lebensborn to be cared for until her baby was born. Then she might keep the baby or she might give it to “suitable” foster parents, usually high-ranking officials.
But the actual war crime part of Lebensborn was the other aspect. The SS abducted children from largely Eastern European occupied territories, sending them to Lebensborn to be Germanized and given to foster parents. They literally would put out a call ordering all families to report with their children to a center, check them for “racially desirable” qualities, and then take the children that “had potential” for Germanization, returning the rest. They also used this as a punishment against resistance fighters, only they would abduct all of their children, sending the “undesirable” ones to work camps and the rest to Lebensborn. It’s this latter aspect of Lebensborn that Ingrid discovers her connection to.
The book begins with a scene of a child abduction and then switches to Ingrid’s memories of her early life immediately post-war and her discovery that she was a foster child. Then many decades are skipped because in reality Ingrid discovered nothing new about her childhood until she was an older woman starting to think about retirement. The earliest part of the book is quite engaging because her foster mother escapes from East to West Germany right before the Iron Curtain closes. The rest is engaging because, of course, we are alongside with Ingrid as she discovers the truth of her early life.
Ingrid’s early investigations in the early 2000s are hampered by intentional resistance and red tape. Even though on paper it should have been easy for her to get assistance going through the voluminous archives (the Nazis kept meticulous records of everything), she actually met foot dragging and even downright lies from those who should have been helping her. Essentially, some people didn’t want the truth of Lebensborn to get out. But Ingrid finds help along the way from those who want to see the truth come out and justice, what little is available at this point in time, done.
Ingrid is quite honest about her difficult feelings during all of this. She ultimately decides she’s not defined by her origins. While I absolutely agree that “the choices we make throughout our life” (page 267) are essential in defining us, I also think where we come from does as well. The two go hand-in-hand. It saddens me that she seems to need to distance herself from that, although I understand why it helps her to do so.
Overall, this is an engaging book that is a quick read. The pairing of the historical facts with the memoirs of an innocent person who discovers her connection to this program works well for the delivery of these facts. It helps the reader remember that these were real events impacting real people who were just starting to discover the truth of their early childhood in the early 2000s.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 276 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: purchased
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Summary:
Tayo, an Indigenous Laguna man, returns from being a prisoner of war of the Japanese in WWII without his cousin. Cousin is the technically accurate word, but since Tayo grew up in his cousin’s household after his mother left him there brother felt more accurate. Tayo is half-white and has always felt estranged, but this feeling is only heightened after the war. He is suffering from shell-shock and feels emptiness in the alcohol and violence the other veterans take solace in. When his grandmother sets him up with a ceremony with a shaman with unusual ways, things start to change.
Review:
He wanted to walk until he recognized himself again.
61% location
After years of reading many books about alcoholism – both its ravages and quitting it – I’ve started having to actively seek out the stories that are a bit less well-known. Now, this book is well-known in Indigenous lit circles, but I’ve only rarely heard it mentioned in quit lit circles. I was immediately intrigued both due to its Indigenous perspective (this is own voices by an Indigenous female author) and due to its age (first published in 1986). Told non-linearly and without chapters, this book was a challenge to me, but by the end I was swept into its storytelling methods and unquestionably moved.
He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.
95% location
This book is so beautiful in ways that are difficult to describe. Its perspective on why things are broken and how one man can potentially be healed (and maybe all of us can be healed if we just listen) was so meaningful to me. I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to read it.
We all have been waiting for help a long time. But it never has been easy. The people must do it. You must do it.
51% location
I really enjoyed how clear this book makes it that any care for addiction delivered needs to be culturally competent to truly serve the person who needs help. It also does not shy away from the very specific pain of being an Indigenous person in the US, and how addiction both seeks to quell that pain and rebel against the oppressive society.
It’s rare for me to re-read a book, but I anticipate this being a book I re-read over the course of time. I expect each reading will reveal new things. For those who already know they enjoy this type of storytelling, I encourage you to pick this up. Its perspective on WWII’s impact on Indigenous peoples and alcoholism is wonderful. For those who don’t usually read this type of story, I encourage you to try out something new. Make the decision to just embrace this way of telling a story and dive right into it. Especially if you usually read quit lit or post-WWII fiction.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 270 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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Book Review: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Summary:
Corrie Ten Boom and her family of watchmakers (she was the first licensed woman watchmaker in the Netherlands) are known for their work in the Dutch underground, both hiding Jewish people and doing organizing work for the underground. She and her sister Betsie did this work with their father. She and Betsie were in their 50s during this work. All three of them were ultimately arrested, and Corrie and Betsie were ultimately sent to the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp. Corrie survived and started a home to help people refind their footing after the War.
Review:
This was one of my favorite books as a little girl. I had a fascination with WWII (still do) and was utterly enamored with Corrie. I distinctly remember that the paperback book I read was borrowed, but am uncertain if I borrowed it from my grandmother or from the church library. In any case, I decided it was high time I re-read this favored book as an adult and see if it withstood my now adult sensibilities. It certainly did.
The Ten Boom’s family commitment to not only do what is right but also to discern what that right thing might be is incredible. Corrie’s ability to be peaceful and not embittered after the War and everything she went through is also amazing. She is honest about who it was more difficult to forgive than others, and how she found the ability to. I believe any reader will be fascinated by the beginning of the book, which details how her family lived as watchmakers in Amsterdam, how they began hiding Jewish people, and how they came to largely run parts of the underground in Amsterdam. The sections about her capture and imprisonment are remarkable for their combination of honesty about the suffering combined with clear forgiveness and lack of bitterness for her captors.
When He [God] tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. (86% into the digital edition”
Corrie also demonstrates a viewpoint of both the body and soul needing to be cared for in order for the human being to be completely well and whole. She notes both when a German captor is clearly well cared-for but wanting in soul care and when a prisoner is happy in the soul but wretched in the body, noting neither is as God intended.
Corrie’s commitment to peace is also seen following the war when she establishes and runs a home to help all people (no matter which side they were on) find their way again after the war. Truly an inspiration in peace work. It’s also inspiring that she didn’t find this labor until she was in her 50s. An indicator that our calling may not fully come until later in life.
5 out of 5 stars
Length: 273 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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Book Review: Watership Down by Douglas Adams
Summary:
When a rabbit low on the totem pole has a bad premonition, he and some friends run from their warren just before man intrudes wreaking havoc on their once-home. What follows is an adventure of evading predators and foes and looking for a new home.
Review:
Let me preface my review by saying that I know a lot of people either: A) love this book or B) find this book to be very traumatic. My experience was neither of these. The fact that this was not my experience does not negate yours. But neither does your love or traumatizing by this book mean that I felt the same way about it.
One of the risks of reading a book that is widely-known and loved (or remembered as traumatic) is that you have a pre-existing notion of just what that experience might mean for you. I came at this book with some trepidation and excitement because I absolutely love bunnies and I also love semi-realistic depictions of wild animals. Those that are accurate about scientific information but also personify them somewhat. I wound up being greatly disappointed because it gave me neither a world of bunnies to get lost in nor an experience of great trauma and drama. What I wanted was a highly emotional experience, and instead I got a bit of boredom and my main emotion being disappointment.
Let me start with what I think was well done. Adams clearly paid a lot of attention to the real science of how wild bunnies live and function, and I appreciated that. I also like the allusions to mythology. But there’s lots of reviews that talk about why they love this book, so let’s get down to why I didn’t.
1) I found it to be way too wordy.
I want cuteness and bunnies and plot not overly long descriptions of fields. This is a really thick book (my copy was 479 pages) and just…not that much actually happens. I don’t like to feel like a book is wasting my time, and I felt that a lot with this one. You could argue that it just felt long because I didn’t emotionally connect to it, but I think part of my lack of emotional connection was because of the lengthy descriptive passages.
2) I was expecting a great mythos of a story, and what I got was WWII with bunnies.
I love WWII. Do not get me wrong. I did an entire course for my History BA in just WWII. But I don’t think bunnies particularly pair well with WWII. A large overarching mythos? Sure. Basically the Battle of the Bulge with rabbits? Not so much. I don’t want my bunnies acting like British colonels and their optimistic soldiers, and I certainly don’t want an evil bunny who is basically Hitler coming into the story. (I mean…who makes the enemy another bunny who is basically Hitler? ? What? Why??)
3)It just isn’t all that tragic (sorry guys).
*spoiler warning*
I thought that basically the bunnies fight to survive all book and then all die at the end. Of the core group of rabbits, only ONE dies. There are many epic battles but just no true peril except for the warren that the rabbits leave at the beginning of the book. They are, true, pretty brutally killed by the farmer, but the problem is we never had a chance to get to know them, and we hear the story of the killing from someone who saw it. We don’t see it first-hand. It’s all very distanced and just not that tragic. This would obviously bother me less if I wasn’t expecting a tragedy from everyone saying how sad Watership Down is. But honestly to this day I don’t get why everyone is so sad. The rabbits get a new warren. They successfully find female bunnies and make more bunnies. One main character dies. That is it. I just. What. Why does this traumatize you people?
*end spoilers*
So, if you are a person who doesn’t mind WWII told through rabbits, quite long passages of description, and will welcome a tale lacking in great tragedies, you might have a better experience with the book than I did. Lord knows many people the world-over have loved it. But for those who come to it expecting to find a great tragedy or a fast-moving tale or warm and cuddly rabbits be warned that it’s not what you’ve heard about it.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 479 pages – chunkster
Source: PaperBackSwap
Counts For:
Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge
Book Review: The Hornet’s Sting: The Amazing Untold Story Of Second World War Spy Thomas Sneum by Mark Ryan (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Thomas Sneum was a Danish Allied spy during World War II who was periodically suspected of being a double agent. Partially due to this suspicion and partially due to infighting between the two British spy agencies (SIS and SOE), he never got the attention or respect he deserved. Mark Ryan, the author, found out about him and set out to get to know him. Both personally and through research. Here he tells the true story of Tommy Sneum and sets the record straight once and for all.
Review:
I picked this book up during a kindle sale because I’m a big WWII buff and who doesn’t love real life spy stories? I thought it was a sure bet, but apparently even a true life spy story can be written in a dull manner.
It’s impossible to read the book without learning a lot. For instance, I had no idea that Britain had two different spy agencies that were battling each other for control of spying missions. This infighting between the SIS and the SOE led to lack of communication and lack of a solid spy front with one, unified plan. Similarly, I didn’t know it was common practice to take people who had escaped from behind Nazi lines, train them as spies, then re-drop them back in their home countries. I always thought the resistance movement just built up from the inside and then they contacted the Allies on the outside with information. How much more complex it was is really interesting. I also loved learning more about those from occupied countries who escaped and fought in other militaries against the Nazis. In spite of learning all of these new to me facts about WWII spying, the book manages to be dull. Ryan tends to wander off on side diatribes about the intricacies of red tape and paperwork instead of focusing in on the more action-oriented, interesting bits of the spying. He also spends a lot of time giving the full name of every single person even vaguely connected with Tommy and the spying, even if they really have no impact on the story. The book could really have used a bit more streamlining and focus to keep the energy up. Just because it’s nonfiction doesn’t mean it can, or should, meander.
Tommy Sneum is hard to root for. He’s not a likable guy. He abandons his wife and infant daughter to go be a spy. That could definitely be seen as valiant, however, he expresses consistent distate for his wife and a lack of concern or care for even knowing his daughter. He certainly comes across in the book as a guy just after adventure, not so much a man looking to protect his country or his family. Similarly, Tommy express arrogance when it comes to women, claiming that they essentially would go sleep with him at the drop of a hat or a snap of his fingers. He does not come across as seeing women as people but rather as recreational objects. One story that really demonstrates this is he tells the author that he had a threesome once, and he was upset that the women dared to pay attention to each other at all, rather than 100% to him. Sex is supposed to be about people giving to each other, not about one person being worshiped. His general attitude towards women gave me a squicky feeling throughout the book. Of course, most people are not all bad or good. Tommy is no exception. He expresses a real openness toward a male colleague who was known to be bi. He refuses to view all Germans as evil monsters and insists, to those high up in the British resistance no less, that most Germans are just caught up in Hitler’s war machine. Of course, these even-handed views are almost universally held of men.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Ryan’s investigation into the accusations that Sneum was a double-agent. This part of the book isn’t really played up in the blurb, which I think is unfortunate. Ryan did a lot of investigative work and lays out all the details that he believes clears Sneum’s name. Seeing how Sneum and his methods were misunderstood by the British and also how having two different spy agencies working led to misunderstandings was truly fascinating, and I’m glad Ryan took the time to work at finding the truth.
Overall, this is a rather slow-paced work of historic nonfiction that focuses in on the red tape and organizational aspects of spying more than exciting adventures. It does good work in determining that Sneum was not a double agent in WWII. Sneum’s womanizing can be a bit tedious at times, although his even-handed perspective on the German people is good to see. Recommended to those interested in the organizational aspects of spying in WWII, including very minute details.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Buy It
Note: Apparently this book is no longer available on the kindle.
Book Review: Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French
Summary:
In 1937 the entire world is on the brink of war. In Peking, China, the Japanese invaders are encroaching. In the midst of this chaos the adopted daughter of British consulman is brutally murdered, her body found in the shadow of the Fox Tower, universally viewed with suspicion by the Pekingers as haunted by spirits. Due to the special circumstances, the murder investigation requires the presence of both a Chinese and a British investigator. They must race to find Pamela’s murderer before the Japanese engulf the city.
Review:
This true crime novel takes a bit to get things set up, but once they are, oh my how it sucks you in.
My fellow librarians will appreciate the backstory of how this true tale was discovered by French. In the Afterword he states that he was digging around in some archives and stumbled upon a box of evidence that Pamela’s father sent off to the government, which was never really looked at and just put away in storage and then into archives. It was through libraries that he even discovered this fascinating, intersectional true crime. I think that’s encouraging to any librarian who has ever spent hours making a finding aid for archives.
So just what makes this true crime more fascinating than others? Pamela was the adopted daughter of Werner, and her adoptive mother died at a young age. She had been away at boarding school in Tientsin and was home for the holidays. Because she was born in China but was also adopted by British consulman, there is an interesting assimilation into Chinese culture going on in her life that we don’t often see in Western novels. Peking itself featured the legations and white districts for multiple different white Western countries. This means that because Pamela was technically a British citizen murdered on Chinese ground both the Chinese and the British police force had to be involved and work together in the investigation. Officer Han and DCI Dennis certainly make for a unique investigation team. In addition, Pamela’s body was discovered in the shadow of the Fox Tower, and this led to speculation about fox spirits, which in Chinese tradition show up as wily women. Of course quickly the seedy underbelly of Peking is implicated, featuring a multicultural bunch of addicts, dope dealers, brothels, and more, and naturally some of the classy elite start to be implicated into that underworld as well. Add in the fact that the Japanese invasion was encroaching and toss in the first rumblings of Communism, and it makes for a story that is impossible to not find fascinating.
French unfurls the story well. He quotes only when it is fairly certain what was said, but summarizes scenes well. A clear picture of both Pamela and Peking are rendered fairly early in the novel. I also appreciate that he spent time at the end talking about what happened to all of the key players and discussing how all-encompassing the Japanese invasion were. I think what he handled best though was presenting people as individuals and not representative of their race or nation or even class. In a true crime as multicultural as this one, that is important. It’s also nice that in a story that could have easily turned into victim blaming, which happens so often when the victim is a young woman, he eloquently avoids any hint of that:
Pamela wasn’t perfect; she was making the same mistakes many girls do when experimenting with their independence, their newfound power on men. Her tragedy was to encounter the wrong men, at just the wrong moment. (location 2834)
I did, however, feel that the beginning was a bit lacking. It took a bit to truly get into the story. A faster pace or a more clear this is where we are going set-up would have been nice. At first it felt like the rather dull story of some poor little imperialist rich girl. But that’s not the story at all. The story is that of an adopted girl in a country where she just so happens to be the color of worldwide colonizers, but it is instead the story of a diverse group of people horrified by the brutal murder of a young woman by a diverse group of sick, twisted people. It would be nice if that was more clear from the beginning.
Overall, this is a well-told, historic true crime novel that manages to avoid victim blaming and also embrace multiculturalism. It will be of particular interest to anyone with a fascination for Chinese or WWII history.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: Across the Table / Dancing on Sunday Afternoons by Linda Cardillo (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
This book actually consists of two different books packaged together into one. They are both standalones, not in a series together.
Across the Table
Follow three generations of an Italian-American Boston family, starting with Rose, who marries a navy seaman right before WWII breaks out. The family ultimately buys a restaurant on Salem Street in the historic North End, and food and the family business both help keep the family together through trials and heart-aches.
Dancing on Sunday Afternoons
Cara goes to care for her grandmother, Giulia, who has fallen and broken her hip on a visit back to the old country of Italy. While visiting her, Giulia reveals to her the story of her first love who died when Cara’s father was just a baby.
Review:
This book made it onto my tbr pile because I found it on trash day on top of a neighbor’s recycling pile. It was one of those cases where obviously someone had given up actually packing for their move and was just chucking it all. The book was in pristine condition, so I yoinked it away (along with two others). Shocker: when I opened this to read it, I discovered that it’s signed by the author. I also didn’t realize until I started reading it that there’s actually two totally separate books in it. The cover only says the first title and mentions a bonus book in rather small type. So this one was full of surprises!
Across the Table
This story is based on the author’s family history, and you can honestly tell. It’s full of so much heart and reality. It’s not your typical romance or women’s fiction. The family felt entirely real, and you could understand why they made the choices they did, even if you wouldn’t have done the same thing. I found Rose by far to be the most interesting, but that’s not really a surprise. I’ve always had a thing for the 1940s, and her life in that decade was simultaneously unique and typical. She spent a couple of years before the war on a tropical island (whose name I cannot remember, I apologize) with her husband. It all felt very South Pacific, but she states that spending this time there gave her and her husband a solid base for the rest of their lives together. They had to really depend on each other. She also said that living there made her question the racism she was raised in and ultimately stop her racist thoughts and actions. They were never extreme, just that avoidance of people visibly different from you that you sometimes see. I also loved that the story is based to solidly in Boston. Cardillo obviously grew up here or visited family a lot here, since she understands simple things like how it takes an hour at least to get from the North End to Cambridge, or how different one side of the river is from the other. The family business and food aspects were also perfectly handled. Just enough to set the atmosphere but not so heavy-handed you wonder if the author forgot about the relationships at the heart of the story. There’s also a nice touch of an uncle/brother/son who is gay, and his Catholic family’s reaction to this is a positive, refreshing change. Perhaps even more so since the reader knows the story is based on a real family. Overall, I absolutely loved this book. It had everything I like in both historic and women’s fiction.
5 out of 5 stars
Dancing on Sunday Afternoons
In contrast, this book was far more tedious and full of cliches and….well basically everything that I don’t like about historic and women’s fiction. Giulia’s immigration story and her family are not particularly easy to empathize with. Her family is incredibly wealthy in Italy, and everyone worries more about appearances than about actually doing the right thing. Even Giulia’s rebellion of marrying the man she wants to marry isn’t all that admirable. She only does it ultimately with the family’s blessing, and her reaction when her husband dies is appalling. (This is not a spoiler. You learn in the first chapter that Giulia’s first husband died). I know that old families really could be like this, but I guess it made less sense being told this way since Giulia was telling the story to her modern granddaughter. I didn’t see any wisdom of age coming through in the telling. I know when my older family members tell me something from their youth, they also discuss what they learned from it. They try to impart some wisdom on me so I don’t make similar mistakes or so that I’m willing to take similar risks. Giulia’s story just doesn’t feel like an elderly person relating to a young family member. I suppose if you really love historic, clean romance novels, you might enjoy this one more than I did. Personally I need this genre to have something extra to really grab me.
3 out of 5 stars
Overall, then, I must average the two books out. I loved the first, but felt that I was not the target audience for the second. It is worth noting that the second was actually Cardillo’s first novel, so her second book was a big improvement. I’ll be keeping my eye on this author, particularly for more work set in Boston. As far as recommendations go, I recommend these books to fans of historic fiction with a focus on romance and women’s personal lives.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: recycling bin
Book Review: The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla
Summary:
After Kristallnacht, Franz Adler, a secular Austrian Jew, is desperate to save the remaining members of his family–his daughter Hannah and sister-in-law Esther. The only place they’re able to find letting in refugees is the relatively border-lax Shanghai.
Meanwhile, Mah Soon Yi, aka Sunny, the daughter of a Chinese doctor and American missionary, is trying to deal with the partial Japanese occupation of her home city of Shanghai while working as a nurse in one of the large hospitals and volunteering in the Jewish Refugee Hospital.
Review:
It’s difficult to review a book that the author obviously put a lot of research effort into, as well as passion for social justice, but that I just personally didn’t end up liking. The story itself isn’t bad, if a bit far-fetched. Clearly based in fact and solid research. I believe the problem lies a bit in the writing.
When I read historic fiction, I like seeing history through the eyes of one person (possibly two). It brings the huge picture you get otherwise down to a personable level. The problem with this book is that it kind of fails to keep things at that personal level. There’s far too much contact with actual big movers and shakers from the historic events. How the heck is this Dr. Adler in so much contact with the Japanese and Nazi elite? One scene like that can be quite powerful in a book, but not multiple ones. It takes it from the realm of historic fiction to that of fantasy.
Additionally, I feel that a bit too often Kalla tells instead of shows. Two characters will be talking about something the reader doesn’t yet know about, such as how the city of Shanghai is set up politically, and instead of putting it into the dialogue, the book just says “And then he told him about thus and such.” That makes for dull reading.
So, really, to me, the plot itself is unique in choosing a population and area of WWII that is not written about that much. The author clearly did his research and has a passion for the time period and issues faced by the people, but the story would be better served if it was made more about the everyman and dialogue and action were used more effectively.
Overall, this is a unique piece of historic fiction that will mainly appeal to fans of the genre looking for a new area of WWII to read about.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy
Summary:
It’s 2007, and Reba is a journalist living in El Paso, Texas, with her fiance, border patrol guard, Riki. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to be fully honest with him about her dark childhood overshadowed by her Vietnam Vet father’s struggle with depression and PTSD. Christmas is coming up, and she is interviewing Elsie, the owner of the local German bakery. Elsie has some intense secrets of her own that show it’s not always easy to know what’s right when your country and family go wrong.
Review:
I have an intense love for WWII stories, and I immediately was drawn to the idea of intergenerational similarities and learning from an older generation innate in this book’s plot. It is a complex tale that McCoy expertly weaves, managing to show how people are the same, yet different, across race, time, and gender.
Reba’s and Elsie’s tales are about two very different kinds of bravery. Reba has a wounded soul that she must be brave enough to reveal to the man she loves. She lives in fear of turning into her father or losing herself entirely in the love for another, the way her mother did. She faces a struggle that I have heard voiced by many in my generation–do I risk myself and my career for love or do I continue on alone? To this end, then, the most memorable parts of Reba’s story, for me, are when Elsie advises her on love in real life, as opposed to the love you see in movies and fairy tales.
I’ve never been fooled by the romantic, grand gestures. Love is all about the little things, the everyday considerations, kindnesses, and pardons. (location 482)
The truth is, everyone has a dark side. If you can see and forgive his dark side and he can see and forgive yours, then you have something. (location 844)
One issue I had with the book, though, is that although we see Elsie’s two relationships before her husband in stark clarity and reality, we never really see what it is that made her ultimately choose her own husband. We see their meeting and first “date,” yes, but that’s kind of it. I felt the book was building up to what ultimately made Elsie choose her American husband and move to Texas, but we only see snippets of this, whereas we see a lot of Elsie’s interactions with her prior two boyfriends. That was a big disappointment to me, because I wanted to know how Elsie knew he was the one, and how she herself was brave enough to take the leap she encourages Reba to make.
I am sure most people will most intensely react to the story of Elsie’s actions to attempt to save a Jewish boy during WWII and may even wish that was the only real story told. Elsie’s life during wartime Germany. It is definitely the stronger of the two stories, but I so enjoyed the lesson in valuing and listening to those older than you that we see through Reba meeting and learning from Elsie that I must say I like the book just the way it is. Is it different? Yes. But that’s part of what makes it stand out in a slew of WWII fiction. Elsie did this brave thing, and her whole life she never knew if it really made much of a difference. She just lived her life, married, had a daughter, was kind to a journalist. In a sense, it makes her story seem more realistic. Less like something from “The Greatest Generation” and more like something possible to accomplish for anyone with a strong will and willingness to make up her own mind.
One critique I have that slowed the book down for me and made it less enjoyable are the insertion of letters between Elsie and her sister, Hazel, who is in the Lebensborn program. Compared to the rest of the book, the letters were slow-moving and only moderately interesting. I can’t help but feel shorter letters would have gotten the same message across without slowing down the story quite so much. Yes, the inclusion of the sister was necessary to the story, but I feel like she got too much stage time, as it were.
I also have to say that I really hate the cover. It reflects none of the spirit or warmth of the book itself. The story is wrapped in warm ovens, scents of cinnamon, and bravery, and yet we get the back of a woman’s head with an inexplicable gingham strip at the bottom? Yeesh.
Overall, this is a life-affirming story that teaches the value of connecting with the older generations and cautions against thoughtless nationalism. I highly recommend it to fans of literary and WWII fiction alike.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Book Review: Wolf Hunt: The Burning Ages by Sebastian P. Breit (series, #1)
Summary:
It’s the future, and the world is in another semi-cold war between NATO and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China). A NATO group of British, American, and German naval ships is being sent to Brazil on a mission, but part-way there they are all zapped back in time to 1940. With the chance to change history for the better, what will they decide to do?
Review:
I first want to point out that Breit is German and wrote this in English himself; it is not a translation. I have to say that I wonder why he made that choice as the plot certainly seems to have more of a European than an American appeal, but I am impressed at his effort to write in his second language.
The summary of the book makes the plot sound fast-paced, but in fact it is actually distressingly slow-moving. It takes about 1/3 of the book for the all-important time-traveling event to happen. I spent the whole first part of the book just waiting and wondering when it was going to happen, because once the basic politics of the world and character traits were set up, it’s just a waiting game. The naval mumbo-jumbo filling up the rest of the space just wasn’t necessary. This issue carries on throughout the book with half of the sailors spending a solid amount of their time stranded on an island, for instance. Since this is marketed as a fast-paced historical thriller, perhaps somewhat like the style of The Da Vinci Code it quite simply needs to move along faster. Intense naval specifics and codes are not necessary. Fast-moving plot is.
Breit also needs to invest in a British and American editor each, as the British and American characters say and do things that are just flat-out wrong in British and American English respectively. One that really slapped me across the face is that one of the characters is from Boston, but everyone refers to him as a “Bostoner.” People from Boston are called “Bostonians.” I have never once in my life heard anyone say “Bostoner,” and I live in Boston. Another example is at one point one of the Americans reads another American’s birthdate from off an id and says it the European way “11 September 2001,” instead of the American way “September 11th, 2001.” This is one of those instances where the author needs to have his facts straight in order for the story to be believable. Nothing makes me not believe a character is American quite like having him get a bunch of American English wrong.
Additionally, as a woman and an author, the way the female characters are handled is distressing to me. Just one example is that a bunch of the stranded female sailors are attacked on the island by some of the locals in an attempt at rape. These women who had the exact same training as their male counter-parts are apparently completely incapable of saving themselves, but instead have to be rescued by their male comrades. But it gets worse. Later when the captain of the ship is relating the event to another man, he asks if the women were alright. The captain responds by saying that the doctor said they were fine. The doctor. Apparently nobody bothered to ask these women if they were raped (HINT: I’m pretty sure women can tell if they’ve been raped or not). Plus no one seems to care that these women are clearly not going to be emotionally ok after almost getting raped, and not once do any of the female characters who were attacked say anything about it with their own voices. This is just completely inexcusable. It’s a removal of women’s voices from ourselves, and it’s insulting to a female reader.
There’s the issue of European bias expressed through the American characters. For instance, one American character expresses shame at how Americans only speak one language. First of all, the rate of bilingualism in the US is actually rising, so following the arc of the future, there should be more bilingual Americans, not less. Second, I’ve never once heard an American express woe in an all-encompassing way like that by saying something like “It’s so sad Americans aren’t bilingual.” People say, “I wish I was fluent in another language,” or “I wish I was fluent in Japanese,” but they just don’t put it that way. That whole paragraph sounded like a European using an American character as a puppet to say what Europeans think of Americans. Yeesh.
I also have problems with the German characters though. A bunch of them express the desire to stop the Holocaust not to save lives but to save the German people from harboring the shame and guilt for generations to come. Um, what? That’s your concern oh time-traveling Germans? Having been to Germany myself on a student exchange and visited Dachau, etc… I can say that I have a hard time imagining any of the kids my age at the time (15ish in the early 2000’s) focusing in on that as opposed to stopping a bad thing from happening because it’s evil and wrong. I can only imagine that generations even further along would be even more focused in on stopping a genocide as opposed to saving some broad idea of German honor. It’d be like having a time-traveling modern American decide to stop the Trail of Tears to save us from shame as opposed to doing it to save innocent Cherokees. The whole thought just makes my brain hurt.
To sum up, Breit shows ability as a writer that needs to be worked on and honed. I’d recommend either getting a good editor who can handle both British and American English or switching to writing in German. He also needs to work on tightening up his plot. Normally I’d say, nice first effort keep trying, but due to the opinions and biases and presentation of women present in this first attempt, I’m afraid I can’t say that. It’s readable, but why would you want to read it anyway?
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Ebook from author in exchange for my honest review
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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