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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
Astounding! I liked this book. I felt like it went very slowly in parts, but it does up every so often and kept me intrigued. I enjoyed the audiobook, and the narrator did an excellent job with the voices.
There is no sex, there is at least one kiss, and there is mental and physical abuse.
*Spoilers Below*
One thing I did not understand was that Reinhardt hit her for the first time when she was 19? I do not feel like that is realistic. For how terrible he was, he should have been hurting her for a while. And how shocked she was when Hitler dismissed it didn't make sense either. She should have already understood that he would.
Anne did a good job of making the villains evil, and the good guys good. I am excited to read the next book.
There is no sex, there is at least one kiss, and there is mental and physical abuse.
*Spoilers Below*
One thing I did not understand was that Reinhardt hit her for the first time when she was 19? I do not feel like that is realistic. For how terrible he was, he should have been hurting her for a while. And how shocked she was when Hitler dismissed it didn't make sense either. She should have already understood that he would.
Anne did a good job of making the villains evil, and the good guys good. I am excited to read the next book.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4,5 stars || love the WW2 history. the romantic side of this story was written very well
This book is easily one of the most deeply compelling fictional WWII novels I have ever read as it is so deeply rooted in actual historical fact. I cannot wait for the upcoming sequel.
This book is amazing. I'm slightly obsessed with the evil that are psychopaths and I'm a bit of a history buff so this book was the ultimate dessert. The writing is great and although gretchen's naivety gets a little tiresome, she's still a pretty cool character. Can't wait for the next book...
3/4. I liked it enough to read the next one. In short, it's a Jewish/Nazi romance (though it's a lot more complicated and nuanced than that). I'm partly Jewish, and trying to imagine actually wanting to engage in this type of relationship with Hitler's adopted (but fictional) niece seems a little far-fetched to me. Like, "oh yeah, you've believed your whole life that I'm sub-human, but let's make out." Don't get me wrong, the protagonist, Gretchen, makes leaps & bounds in her personal ideology, and she was, of course, brainwashed by the SA party from a very young age...but still. I know that this type of relationship did, occasionally, happen back then, but I thought that the author simplified the plot and the relationship a bit too much. I would recommend, though.
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
🟨
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Physical abuse
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Suicide
I really enjoyed it from the beginning, but the ending just made it so amazing for me. I'm really interested in historical fiction, especially from the WWII era and I loved that this had such a fresh new perspective from all the others that I read. I need the second book right now. Pretty please?
I liked this because of the alternate viewpoint, but didn't really see the romance as being realistic.
Since I first learned about The Second World War in history class, I’ve been interested about it and the people who had a role within it. Hitler, of course, is one of the main figures of that period of history, and back in the day I used to be quite interested about everything that was somehow related to him – much like Gretchen in Prisoner of Night and Fog, I had a desire to find out what made him so evil and what circumstances brought him into power. I’ve read a couple of books about Anne Frank, and seen some films about that historical period (I think The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas will haunt me ‘til the day I die – I did not sleep for two nights after reading that book), and when I saw this in the NetGalley catalogue, I knew that I have to read it.
Gretchen is 17 years old and a member of Hitler’s inner circle. It’s the early 1930s in Munich, and though Hitler hasn’t yet officially risen to power, he is gaining more and more momentum and the conditions for those who do not share his beliefs are getting worse. Hitler’s number 1 target – the Jews. Since Gretchen was child, she has been taught to hate the Jews – Hitler has taught her to see them as “subhumans, determined to destroy her and other pure-blooded Germans”. She had been taught to see the Jews as “her eternal enemy”, as a group of people she has a “pure blooded”, perfect Aryan specimen should avoid. Then, after a random collection of events she meets Daniel, a journalism for a communist newspaper in the city, who also happens to be a Jew.
Though Gretchen is extremely hesitant to make any connection with Daniel, the moment he tells her that he knows something about Gretchen’s father’s death, she knows that she must listen to him, even though her mind tells that everything he is saying and doing is somehow wrong, somehow bad and that he is somehow using her – she knows how Hitler would react, and the way she has been raised is telling her that she cannot trust a Jew. But as the evidence starts to pile up, and she she spends more time with Daniel, she starts to realize that everything she has been taught, everything she has believed in, and everything Hitler has told her is right might be wrong. She realizes that she is not much different from the Daniel, and with that comes the horrible realization that what Hitler is doing might actually be based on a lie, on something that he has created just to rise to the power. In Mein Kampf Hitler says “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one” – Gretchen realizes that she has been living a lie, and the man that she saw as a father figure is a monster, not Daniel, a representative of group of people she had been told to see as monster.
The amount of historical research the author has done for the novel, evident from the selected bibliography at the end of the book, is astounding. Gretchen, her family, Daniel and a couple of other characters are fictional, but otherwise the novel is filled with names we all know, even if we would like not to – Hitler, Hess, Eva Braun- and events that eventually led to Hitler’s rise to leadership. The way Blankman uses the historical details is brilliantly executed and while the book is extremely exciting and action packed, it also manages to be educating. I cannot stress the importance for books like this – as we are moving further and further from those events in the history, we still need to look to the past and show, especially to young readers, what has happened just to make sure things like that don’t happen again.
It is hard to imagine this is Blankman’s debut, because her writing, world building, the use of historical details and the confidence behind her work seem like she is not doing this for the first time. The character development is excellent – especially the difficult relationships between Gretchen and her brother is intriguing one. Also the relationship between Gretchen and Daniel is well developed – though the synopsis quite clearly indicates that something will happen between these characters, it’s no instalove so often seen in young adult novels. Time is given for Gretchen to see who Daniel truly is – and while she needs time to trust him, he also needs time to trust her. The connection between Gretchen and Hitler is interesting and well developed – we see glimpses of Hitler as Gretchen’s loving, caring “uncle” and reading those moments is extremely difficult and uncomfortable, knowing what he did and with what results. The element of psychoanalysis and Hitler’s mental health are extremely well woven to the narrative of the novel and it will be interesting to see how the sequel further discusses this.
"The man she had loved as a father was a fraud. He kissed the backs of her hands and advocated war; he ruffled her hair and preached death; he had played with her on the carpet with toy soldiers, and all along he had been planning the extinction of an entire people."
One of the most nerving things while reading this novel was the fact that YOU KNOW that things will get much, much worse. The novel is set in the early 1930s, when things were still comparatively “easy” for the Jews (yes, easy is not maybe the right word to use here, but when you compare it to what happened when Hitler rose to power, I think you know what I mean). Throughout the novel there’s an undercurrent of tension rising, and I can’t wait to see how that will be explored in the upcoming sequel.
Throughout, Prisoner of Night and Fog is intriguing, entertaining, fast-paced and extremely exciting historical novel. It is an instant pick for history fans, but I hope that it also catches the interest of readers who usually are not big on historical fiction. I found the ending weird at first (that’s why I give it four stars instead of five), but then realized that there’s a sequel coming up, so that explained it. Make sure you have time at hand when you start to read this one, because at least I wasn’t able to put it down.
Are you a fan of historical novels? Are there some historical YA titles you could recommend for me?
Gretchen is 17 years old and a member of Hitler’s inner circle. It’s the early 1930s in Munich, and though Hitler hasn’t yet officially risen to power, he is gaining more and more momentum and the conditions for those who do not share his beliefs are getting worse. Hitler’s number 1 target – the Jews. Since Gretchen was child, she has been taught to hate the Jews – Hitler has taught her to see them as “subhumans, determined to destroy her and other pure-blooded Germans”. She had been taught to see the Jews as “her eternal enemy”, as a group of people she has a “pure blooded”, perfect Aryan specimen should avoid. Then, after a random collection of events she meets Daniel, a journalism for a communist newspaper in the city, who also happens to be a Jew.
Though Gretchen is extremely hesitant to make any connection with Daniel, the moment he tells her that he knows something about Gretchen’s father’s death, she knows that she must listen to him, even though her mind tells that everything he is saying and doing is somehow wrong, somehow bad and that he is somehow using her – she knows how Hitler would react, and the way she has been raised is telling her that she cannot trust a Jew. But as the evidence starts to pile up, and she she spends more time with Daniel, she starts to realize that everything she has been taught, everything she has believed in, and everything Hitler has told her is right might be wrong. She realizes that she is not much different from the Daniel, and with that comes the horrible realization that what Hitler is doing might actually be based on a lie, on something that he has created just to rise to the power. In Mein Kampf Hitler says “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one” – Gretchen realizes that she has been living a lie, and the man that she saw as a father figure is a monster, not Daniel, a representative of group of people she had been told to see as monster.
The amount of historical research the author has done for the novel, evident from the selected bibliography at the end of the book, is astounding. Gretchen, her family, Daniel and a couple of other characters are fictional, but otherwise the novel is filled with names we all know, even if we would like not to – Hitler, Hess, Eva Braun- and events that eventually led to Hitler’s rise to leadership. The way Blankman uses the historical details is brilliantly executed and while the book is extremely exciting and action packed, it also manages to be educating. I cannot stress the importance for books like this – as we are moving further and further from those events in the history, we still need to look to the past and show, especially to young readers, what has happened just to make sure things like that don’t happen again.
It is hard to imagine this is Blankman’s debut, because her writing, world building, the use of historical details and the confidence behind her work seem like she is not doing this for the first time. The character development is excellent – especially the difficult relationships between Gretchen and her brother is intriguing one. Also the relationship between Gretchen and Daniel is well developed – though the synopsis quite clearly indicates that something will happen between these characters, it’s no instalove so often seen in young adult novels. Time is given for Gretchen to see who Daniel truly is – and while she needs time to trust him, he also needs time to trust her. The connection between Gretchen and Hitler is interesting and well developed – we see glimpses of Hitler as Gretchen’s loving, caring “uncle” and reading those moments is extremely difficult and uncomfortable, knowing what he did and with what results. The element of psychoanalysis and Hitler’s mental health are extremely well woven to the narrative of the novel and it will be interesting to see how the sequel further discusses this.
"The man she had loved as a father was a fraud. He kissed the backs of her hands and advocated war; he ruffled her hair and preached death; he had played with her on the carpet with toy soldiers, and all along he had been planning the extinction of an entire people."
One of the most nerving things while reading this novel was the fact that YOU KNOW that things will get much, much worse. The novel is set in the early 1930s, when things were still comparatively “easy” for the Jews (yes, easy is not maybe the right word to use here, but when you compare it to what happened when Hitler rose to power, I think you know what I mean). Throughout the novel there’s an undercurrent of tension rising, and I can’t wait to see how that will be explored in the upcoming sequel.
Throughout, Prisoner of Night and Fog is intriguing, entertaining, fast-paced and extremely exciting historical novel. It is an instant pick for history fans, but I hope that it also catches the interest of readers who usually are not big on historical fiction. I found the ending weird at first (that’s why I give it four stars instead of five), but then realized that there’s a sequel coming up, so that explained it. Make sure you have time at hand when you start to read this one, because at least I wasn’t able to put it down.
Are you a fan of historical novels? Are there some historical YA titles you could recommend for me?
This was a solid read for me! I absolutely loved all the small details throughout the book that really touched on who hitler was as a person and how people were inclined to follow him etc.
If asked I could probably talk about this book for 20 minutes straight. Definitely picking up the sequel!
If asked I could probably talk about this book for 20 minutes straight. Definitely picking up the sequel!