Reviews

The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood

iselotte's review against another edition

emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

carolyn0613's review against another edition

4.0

Paul Beckermann is a German artist who lives in London. When he hears about the death of one of his old art school friends, it leads him to think about his time at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau and later his life in Berlin. It's a great story if a little sluggish in the middle. Paul is a bit hard to like as he seem quite self centred and oblivious to how his friends are feeling or what they are thinking.

buecher_und_huehner's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

jacki_f's review against another edition

4.0

Peter Beckermann arrives at the Bauhaus school of art in Weimar in 1922. Over the next year he will form a tight friendship with five other students. Their relationships are complex: various people in love with various others. The dynamics of that year will impact on them all as the years pass and we pick up his story again in 1929 and 1932. As the Nazis rise to power, being associated with the Bauhaus is not safe. Peter narrates his story from the safety of the post War years in England, but we know from the outset that all of his contemporaries will not have been so lucky.

I liked this book very much. I liked the way the author integrates real people and events into her fictional story and I learned a lot about a part of German history that I didn't know much about. The Guardian review describes the book as "narratively propulsive", but I thought that was only the case intermittently. It unfolds slowly and sometimes I had no sense of why we were spending time on events that seemed irrelevant. However the ending brings it all together very well.

cuppycups's review

art school

o_max16's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

amygibbs99's review

3.0

sluggish disjointed but intriguing scene setting

jmatkinson1's review

4.0

1922, Paul rebels against his father, a manufacturer, and goes to study art at the newly opened and radical Bauhaus school in Weimar. there he falls in with a disparate group of fellow students whose lives, loves and art are influenced by the Bauhaus, Germany between the wars and the rise of the Nazis.
Although I found the first third of the book difficult to engage with, by halfway I was really interested. I think this had a lot to do with the way that Weimar Germany was depicted and the slow, insidious rise of the Nazi party. The deprivations of life in 1920s Germany were depicted well, hyperinflation was astonishing. Although the fate of each student was mapped out from the start, story was still gripping and ultimately very sad.

heyitsdaliiii's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense 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

5.0

miamia1's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Enjoyed this book more than I expected. The characters came alive and I felt I was there with them. I will miss them now I’ve finished this book