Reviews

It will take me a while to recover from this book. Or maybe I shouldn't recover from it at all. This is a devastating read, based on true events. Even for someone, who was taught a lot about the Nazi regime in school and read some other books about the Third Reich since then.
It is not that I didn't know about these things, but reading about it in so much detail, is just tough. And it should be. Especially with loud voices everywhere, which are trying to make us forget about these things, with right wing parties rising back to power all over the world.
If you are asking yourself how that can be possible, the answer is an easy one, when you read about what was even possible back then.
This novel seems to be well researched, but it is not the best written novel ever. The writing is good, but the author just wanted a bit too much, wanted to throw everything he knew in there. It is a bit all over the place and sometimes a bit hard to follow and a bit lost.
But it is still an impressive book about absolute horrible acts and a very important read.

mahlikatebook's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

carmelawahlen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

jwebster's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A shocking but very informative and important book. Struggled in the latter half as it does become somewhat repetitive and is rather long, but nonetheless worth the read.

secre's review against another edition

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2.0

The subject matter covered by this novel is harrowing but the prose itself is bland and formulaic with no heart or soul behind it to catch you and draw you in. In fact, I would potentially go so far as to say that the only reason this novel has gained so many five star reviews is because of the content and because nobody wants to negatively rate a book about the forced euthanasia of so many children during Nazi times. But for all of the horrendous acts that are described; children dying due to procedures, being put down with medicines, guts hanging out of backsides and even the process of disembowelling oneself… this is somehow, bland and boring.

At no point do you gain any real attachment for the main characters, even though the tale is virtually told through two of them; a nurse and a boy in the same institution. I don’t think I ever really felt sorrow or pity despite knowing that what had happened was horrendously wrong. This book just didn’t draw me into these characters lives and force me to care about them. In fact, many times I would forget characters names entirely and be surprised when they were brought up later as I had somehow just assumed they were dead already. The naming conventions for staff and children kept changing as well, with them sometimes being referred to by first names, sometimes second names and because the names are not English this made it much harder to keep track of what was going on. With other characters there is no conclusion to the novel, no closure and threads are just left hanging in the wind.

The novels scope is also too broad, going from childhood to adulthood, to the pinnacle of these doctors careers to their deaths and trials. It just seemed to meander along and never pick up enough pace to be interesting. If anything the most interesting sections are the trial bits and these are right at the end and such a tiny fraction of the book that it’s almost as if they aren’t important. Instead you are bored to tears with the various tales of where Adrian goes after being moved from the institution as unreformable and it’s all as bleakly depressing and yet mind-numbingly boring as the rest of it… there’s no emotion or pull throughout… it is all just very bland, he did this, she did that.

This may be perhaps due to the translation. Perhaps it works better in its native language. Of that I cannot say. It is after all written with a clearly skilled hand, even if the style was certainly not to my taste. What I can say is that I found this dry, dreary and dull in spite of the fact that the content itself should have been horrifying. I found myself skipping paragraphs or even pages because I’d completely lost interest in it before picking up something vaguely eye catching for a while before once more becoming bored and fast reading again…

clarice_flora's review

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

an absolutely all encompassing read, you’re drawn in to a world of absolute horror and trauma, and you feel part of it. beautifully and powerfully written, and deals with the darkest parts of history in a thoughtful and humanising way.

Content Warnings

orlagal's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

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