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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
What I enjoyed most about this book was seeing the happenings in Germany from a different point of view. Many books are written from the point of view of those that suffered at the hands of Germans, but very few about the resisters. The people who saw what was happening to their country and stood against it.
In this book Marianne is one of those.
For so long Marianne and Albrecht and many of their friends had known Hitler was a lunatic, a leader whose lowbrow appeal to people's most selfish, self-pitying emotions and ignorance was an embarrassment for their country.
After her husband is killed resisting Adolf Hitler, Marianne returns to their home and begins to fulfill her promise to take care of the wives and children of the resistors. Among those she rescues her childhood friend's widow, Benita and her son Martin, as well as a Polish woman named Ania. The book follows the struggles of these women who are attempting to put their life back together and survive after the horrors of war.
While learning about the events of World War 2 it is so easy to think that things like this are behind us. That there is no way that someone like this could be raised to power today. That people are smarter today and we have learned from their mistakes.
They are suggestible masses, used to basing their beliefs and actions on ideology rather than experience.
But books like this make it easy to see why it happened and draw frightening parallels to this time and the time we are living in now.
Germany was being run by a loudmouthed rabble-rouser bent on baiting other nations to war and making life miserable for countless innocent citizens.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful writing, I couldn't find myself connecting with any of the characters, something that would have bumped this book from a 3-star to a 5-star book.
In this book Marianne is one of those.
For so long Marianne and Albrecht and many of their friends had known Hitler was a lunatic, a leader whose lowbrow appeal to people's most selfish, self-pitying emotions and ignorance was an embarrassment for their country.
After her husband is killed resisting Adolf Hitler, Marianne returns to their home and begins to fulfill her promise to take care of the wives and children of the resistors. Among those she rescues her childhood friend's widow, Benita and her son Martin, as well as a Polish woman named Ania. The book follows the struggles of these women who are attempting to put their life back together and survive after the horrors of war.
While learning about the events of World War 2 it is so easy to think that things like this are behind us. That there is no way that someone like this could be raised to power today. That people are smarter today and we have learned from their mistakes.
They are suggestible masses, used to basing their beliefs and actions on ideology rather than experience.
But books like this make it easy to see why it happened and draw frightening parallels to this time and the time we are living in now.
Germany was being run by a loudmouthed rabble-rouser bent on baiting other nations to war and making life miserable for countless innocent citizens.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful writing, I couldn't find myself connecting with any of the characters, something that would have bumped this book from a 3-star to a 5-star book.
I was hesitant to read another WWII book, but I enjoyed the perspective from this book. Especially one of the characters who was a Hitler believer and later said it was the first big mistake of her life. This character helped me understand how people in the U.S. could be so enamored with the 45th President (an evil Hitler clone). Towards the end of the book, the same character kept reliving an incident with babies and the comment about not standing up and taking action again resonated with me because of the current U.S. climate. An interesting read and very thought provoking.
After reading an article and an editorial by the author, I was compelled to read this novel immediately. It's mostly a post-war novel about widows who lost their husbands during an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The novel dips into their backstories as well. I highly recommend it if you're interested in historical fiction.
Definitely a new take on WWII fiction. 3 different widows come together at the end of the war. This is their story of moving on. This one moved a bit slow for me, but was still thought provoking at times. I also didn't feel the characters were developed as much as the could have been.
Interesting premise and WWII tale. Not anything majorly new, but interesting story that’s well told.
DNF at 210 pages. I know that’s pretty far in but I was trying to power through in hopes it would get better and bc I’ve already invested so much time in it but...
this book was published in 2017 and I see no reason why the author or their team thought multiple G slurs and now an E slur were needed or acceptable.
aside from that this book has left me completely bored. I have no interest in what happens to these characters.
this book was published in 2017 and I see no reason why the author or their team thought multiple G slurs and now an E slur were needed or acceptable.
aside from that this book has left me completely bored. I have no interest in what happens to these characters.
I toggled between 3 and 4 stars because I thought the writing was wonderful, but a book you really need to concentrate, which got in its own way. There are many characters to follow over the course of 70 years of history and is not written in linear format. Anyway, what I liked about the book was that it was a story not previously told (or read) about the wives of the resisters in Germany during WWII and the rise of Hitler. If I took one thing away from the book, is that it screams a message to all of us in America today. But take from it what you would.
For the first half of this book I was rather unimpressed. The premise is interesting and it's the first book I've read about WWII from the POV of Germans, but the writing seemed elementary and the characters weren't compelling. My opinion changed when Ania's story unfolded, and then everything else came into focus. I'm now convinced that this is an intelligent, important book, not only for understanding history but for understanding how compromise and darkness and deceit and misjudgment are within all of us. The ideas of resistance and how to navigate those waters without knowing the big picture will always be pertinent because there will always be the temptation to follow those who are evil but entice us with grandiose visions of ourselves.
I listened to this story as an audiobook and I think that has affected my rating. I found the CD narrator to be to slow and that caused the story to drag for me. The storyline was innovative and original however. There are not a lot of books that address German resistance to the Third Reich before and during WWII.
Although somewhat dry at times, this story of 3 women and their trials through post WWII are very fascinating.