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redbookpanda's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
1.0
The first thing I have to say before really starting this review:
Deciding to write about a group of German people who are obsessed with blood purity and make none of the characters be critical of this obsession was definitely an...interesting decision. Making your main character German, grow up in Germany and then just say „Oh guess that means my list of future husbands is pretty slim.“ after she learnt that some of her people do not approve of marrying outside of their group and that blood purity is literally measured in percentages and you’re only allowed to do specific things when your blood is pure enough does not make sense in any way. She should have reacted negative or at least disturbed in some way.
Even now it is weird to see people talk about how they are „20% Italian“, „40% Scottish“ or whatever else their family research tells them. As soon as the words blood and purity are mentioned in the same sentence, people who grew up in Germany should be on guard because they expect the next words to be r@cist.
But moving on. Spoilers for the whole book from now on.
My second biggest problem with the book (besides the uncomfortable parts about blood purity) is how a lot of basic things about living in Germany were just plain wrong. Were these small things that didn’t have a lot of impact in the story and people outside of Germany probably won’t notice them? Yes.
But I am from Germany and I had to read about them and they always took me out of the story.
Here are some examples:
- The names. The story takes place between the 1980s and 2000, most of the people are born in the early 80s. The names Trudi and Traudl were definitely NOT common during that time. Don’t even get me started on Swanhilde. Yes it is an oldgerman name but it’s also one that is more linked to northern Germany and nordic mythology, not Bavaria. Same thing with von Thaden. This is a place in Schleswig-Holstein. It does not make sense that a Bavarian family, who apparently has been living in Bavaria since forever because they are a good teutonic family to have a name from northern Germany. I’m also still confused about where Swanie got the nickname Dane for her brother when his real name was Anton Gerhard.
- Opening apartment doors from outside without a key. This got mentioned more than once (while visiting Lady Muniche and Hans, if I remember it right) and doesn’t make any sense because our doors aren’t built like that. German apartment doors don’t really have doorknobs. Especially not in the middle of Munich, where Lady Muniches apartment was located.
- Trudi mentions heating up her cafeteria food. Even at private schools this hasn’t really been a thing during the 80s. Most of german school days stopped during lunch time, the latest class mostly stopped at 2pm. Schools with whole days and cafeteria food has only really been a thing in the last 10ish years, at least in Western Germany. (The states in Eastern Germany are a bit different but the story is set in Munich, so it doesn’t matter what Eastern Germany was doing.)
- Mutti and Pappi. Mutti is more a thing in Eastern Germany, Pappi is just wrong, it would be Papa or Papi.
- Pop-Tarts. You can’t even get Pop-Tarts now in any of our supermarkets, so they definitely weren’t available in the 80s/90s.
- Der Weg Teutonisch. If this is supposed to mean The teutonian way then the translation was not correct. Even if it’s supposed to be like that, it just sounds awkward and weird. Der teutinische Weg, Der Weg Teutoniens would have made more sense.
- How Swanie jumps around between schools. She lived with Beth and her family for two years when she was 11ish? I think? And then went back to the US for her tenth grade. This honestly doesn’t make any sense, she should have to repeat at least one year. Even for smaller exchanges schools try and send you during times like school holidays so that you won’t miss that much of your own classes. And when you come back, you still have to make up for the stuff that you missed.
- „he would love to be there for the fall of the Berlin wall, to see the moment when the German people triumphed over Communism“. Nobody talks like that about the fall of the wall. Especially because this talk happens during the 90s. The fall of the wall was not even ten years ago. People were still happy to be able to see their family and friends again, Germany was still getting used to being one country again. Some of the story takes place in the US but this was still the most American thing that happend in the whole book.
And here’s the thing that made me really angry while reading:
- The legal drinking age/age of consent. Both laws are mentioned in the story and are supposed to be 14. This is wrong. The legal drinking age is 16 for beer, wine and sparkling wine. The age for hard alcohol like vodka, rum or similar drinks is 18. You are allowed to drink beer, wine or sparkling wine with the explicit consent of your legal guardian when you are 14 or 15. But that’s an exception, the legal drinking age is still 16.
The age of consent is a bit more complicated but here’s the most important part: The age of consent is 14, if both partners are under 18. Swanie would NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX WITH HANS WHILE BEING UNDERAGE BECAUSE HE IS 30 YEARS OLDER THAN HER. To pretend that a guy who is in his 40s would have been allowed to have sex with a 14 year old kid is just plain wrong and also disgusting.
With all my criticism about Germany out of the way, let’s move on to more general criticism.
All of the mentioned history in this book, from the Teutons to the fall of Muniche because of the Saxons was just wrong. Yes the Teutons existed, yes they were a germanic tribe, but they did not settle down in Bavaria, they came from Denmark and later probably settled down in Nordfriesland, a part of Northern Germany. While they also supposedly went to Italy and France, there are no signs of them staying in Munich.
Even the mentioned mythology in the story doesn’t really make any sense. Faeries like the Eihalbe are more common in Ireland, Scotland or Scandinavia. Witches and ghosts are most common in German tales, maybe even werewolves or dwarves, but no faeries.
The magic system doesn’t really make any sense to me. Even if we ignore the time travel for now, why would elemental magic help you with your eyesight? Why is Swanie able to use her ice to be able to see better? Where’s the connection between these things? What’s the difference between black fire, straight fire and yellow fire? Why the fuck would you name one of the elements Föhn (hairdryer). Even if this is the first book in the series and you can’t explain everything in the beginning, at least the elemental magic should make sense.
Now let’s talk about Swanie. I disliked her from the first chapter. She is rude, judgemental, downright mean at times and arrogant. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if any of these flaws were acknowledged in the text. But instead of any criticism against her we only get to see how she slutshames her friends, only thinks about some of them as „rich friends“ because that’s apparently the most important thing about them (besides them hooking up with a bunch of guys who could be their dads), talks down to people, judges everyone she knows about everything they do (the people they flirt with, the people they hook up with, how good they are at playing instruments, the list goes on and on), is mean to a girl who is a few years younger than her, just to make herself look better and smarter. (Are people from Paris rude? Yes, just like people from Munich or New York are rude. That’s just how big city people are. But in my personal experience, French people are more likely to be happy that you’re at least trying to speak their language, even when you’re not perfect at it.)
The whole relationship between Hans and Swanie with all their secrets and going behind her fathers back honestly just screams gr00ming. All of this was creepy and uncomfortable to read.
Swanies school friend group did not seem like any of these girls even like each other. There was no real chemistry between any of them. Also, one of them wore white leather shorts and a crop top while they went up to the Zugspitze. Even if you ride the cable car, wearing this outfit was probably the most stupid thing she could have done.
Beth and Swanie talking about asexuality and how Hans may be ace doesn’t really make any sense because asexuality is even know pretty unknown, unless both of them were super involved in the queer community, there is no way they would have known about this specific sexuality.
The on page r@p€ was unnecessary in my opinion. If you had wanted Swanie to be worried about losing the Torstein, the guys could have just stolen it. Besides moving out of the dorm and a few randomly mentioned flashbacks the ass@ult didn’t really have any real impact on the story.
A lot of the technology doesn’t really make any sense for the time period. Spam bots weren’t a thing in the 90s, digital cameras already existed but not in the way they are now, ordering a CD online was not how this worked, getting a CD from Finland should have taken longer than two weeks. All of this could have been avoided if the story took place ten years later or if no specific years were mentioned.
Beth and Swanie not telling Joel anything about their plans until the minute they want to use the Torstein was just plain stupid.
A few last words:
Of course you can argue that a fantasy book about time travel doesn’t have to be historically accurate. But if you already can’t get the present timeline right, at least try and get the history or at least mythology right. Reading the parts set in Germany just made it really obvious that the author did not grew up in Germany. The technology parts made it also pretty obvious that the author probably does not remember the 90s/early 2000s that well. Even if it wasn’t that important, there wasn’t even any mention of people being worried about changing from the year 1999 to the year 2000. The only mention about Swanies childhood in Germany we got were church visits. The only thing these girls talked about were their teutonic blood, who they want to marry and school. No pop culture (besides all the name dropping of metal bands), no typical things kids played in these years, no mention of anything typical German besides church and food. It just did not feel authentic. Of course you can write about a culture and a country that’s not your own. But at least do it right.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Sexual assault
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