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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I just didn’t connect with the characters as much as I wished I would and the writing style wasn’t for me - but a very interesting concept to read about.
I read a ton of books about WWII (see Yesterdays post!) but the setting for this YA book is unlike any I’ve ever read. At times I wondered how much was just completely made up, but the author’s note at the end was full of historical references and well researched.
Sarah is a Jewish girl, 15 years old, but small from malnutrition. She finds herself working for a British spy who she’s not entirely sure she can trust, and infiltrating a National Socialist school in order to obtain some senstative information for the war effort.
This book is intense at times, though I felt like it kept the YA audience in mind throughout. It made me think about WWII events, especially within Germany, in ways I hadn’t before. The plot, characters, and setting nailed the thriller genre while still making this historical fiction.
I heard @everydayreading talk about this book and compare it to The Book Thief, and I agree. This new release I really well done.
Sarah is a Jewish girl, 15 years old, but small from malnutrition. She finds herself working for a British spy who she’s not entirely sure she can trust, and infiltrating a National Socialist school in order to obtain some senstative information for the war effort.
This book is intense at times, though I felt like it kept the YA audience in mind throughout. It made me think about WWII events, especially within Germany, in ways I hadn’t before. The plot, characters, and setting nailed the thriller genre while still making this historical fiction.
I heard @everydayreading talk about this book and compare it to The Book Thief, and I agree. This new release I really well done.
Fantastic historical fiction! Killeen takes many true pieces of history and blends then together into a unique, on-the-edge-of-your-seat story. It's impossible not to get completely swept up into Sarah's story of survival.
Disclaimer: The author is a former co-worker of mine. I mention this only because I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise, as my type of historical fiction usually involves spooky magic and Victorian outfits. The fact that this is not my typical cup of tea is the only part that will likely effect my review.
My first impression of this book is that it doesn't feel like YA. That doesn't have to do with the darkness of it or the subject matter, but rather the style. From the get-go, it felt distinctly adult. Maybe it's a leftover feeling from reading Holocaust novels in school. I am familiar with Matt Killeen's writing and recognized his stylistic, even experimental at times, prose and it was interesting seeing that applied to this kind of story. It sticks out for YA, but suits this dark and twisted historical novel.
Sarah Goldstein, a clever and talented Jewish girl living in Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, is orphaned after her mother's failed attempt to get them safely out of Austria. After a fortuitous encounter with a man she discovers is an undercover British operative, she agrees to work for him as a spy at an elite Nazi school. There, she struggles to survive and maintain her humanity in the cruel, stark environment of the school while helping stop the creation of a weapon that could change the war.
Orphan Monster Spy has interesting twist and turns, and while I enjoyed reading it, I can't say it left a particularly strong impression on me. I think what stands out the most is the atmosphere. The prose effectively portrays a world that is cold and ruthless, in which our main character and the people she cares about are never safe. I also appreciated that Killeen portrays the incompetence and inefficiency of the authoritarian Nazi regime, from the sloppy infrastructure to the horrible food at the school. However, I think that same mechanism that is the book's most striking element - the prose - also creates a degree of detachment. It's abstract when it could be more evocative.
Sarah as a character is indistinctly distinct. She has precisely the right kind of skills to be recruited as a teenage spy, and uses some in effective ways and others not so much. She makes friends and enemies. I can't tell you why she never stood out to me, or why I never felt particularly attached to her. I suppose as a spy that's the effect she's supposed to have. Perhaps Killeen did his job a little too well.
This is a tough novel in a lot of ways, I feel the need to make that clear. Its not just the atmosphere of perpetual threat, Sarah is exposed to some awful dangers that she is wholly unprepared for. I am intrigued as to where her character will go, and I am interested in the small spark that exists between Sarah and the Captain, especially considering its a much different kind of relationship than what you might see in YA. For all its high drama and deeply immersive setting, I would have expected this book to have more of an impact on me. As it is, it was not a particularly striking novel to me, but a good one.
My first impression of this book is that it doesn't feel like YA. That doesn't have to do with the darkness of it or the subject matter, but rather the style. From the get-go, it felt distinctly adult. Maybe it's a leftover feeling from reading Holocaust novels in school. I am familiar with Matt Killeen's writing and recognized his stylistic, even experimental at times, prose and it was interesting seeing that applied to this kind of story. It sticks out for YA, but suits this dark and twisted historical novel.
Sarah Goldstein, a clever and talented Jewish girl living in Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, is orphaned after her mother's failed attempt to get them safely out of Austria. After a fortuitous encounter with a man she discovers is an undercover British operative, she agrees to work for him as a spy at an elite Nazi school. There, she struggles to survive and maintain her humanity in the cruel, stark environment of the school while helping stop the creation of a weapon that could change the war.
Orphan Monster Spy has interesting twist and turns, and while I enjoyed reading it, I can't say it left a particularly strong impression on me. I think what stands out the most is the atmosphere. The prose effectively portrays a world that is cold and ruthless, in which our main character and the people she cares about are never safe. I also appreciated that Killeen portrays the incompetence and inefficiency of the authoritarian Nazi regime, from the sloppy infrastructure to the horrible food at the school. However, I think that same mechanism that is the book's most striking element - the prose - also creates a degree of detachment. It's abstract when it could be more evocative.
Sarah as a character is indistinctly distinct. She has precisely the right kind of skills to be recruited as a teenage spy, and uses some in effective ways and others not so much. She makes friends and enemies. I can't tell you why she never stood out to me, or why I never felt particularly attached to her. I suppose as a spy that's the effect she's supposed to have. Perhaps Killeen did his job a little too well.
This is a tough novel in a lot of ways, I feel the need to make that clear. Its not just the atmosphere of perpetual threat, Sarah is exposed to some awful dangers that she is wholly unprepared for. I am intrigued as to where her character will go, and I am interested in the small spark that exists between Sarah and the Captain, especially considering its a much different kind of relationship than what you might see in YA. For all its high drama and deeply immersive setting, I would have expected this book to have more of an impact on me. As it is, it was not a particularly striking novel to me, but a good one.
Orphan. Monster. Spy. These are the three things our protagonist becomes in this book set during the rise of Hitler, the Nazi party, and the beginning of WWII. It revolves around Sarah, a blonde-haired and blue-eyed Jewish girl aged 15, and the way her life abruptly changes with the horrific death of her mother. The man she meets soon after changes her world even more.
He is a spy. He is very good at what he does but Sarah has talents of her own and becomes an apprentice of sorts because he can use her, she insists, since she is a very smart little girl. She is sent to an elite Nazi boarding school to infiltrate them and get herself into places he cannot.
I suppose I am only vaguely surprised that this was classified into the YA genre since it is much darker and real than most things you would find here. Death, violence, and even a paedophile. Mind, there is nothing that a parent might find suspect enough to keep their YA reader away from this; any reader coming into this should have at least a basic historical knowledge of Europe in this time period and what the Jewish people were forced to go through. All in all, it was a really good read and gave an insight (even if fictional) into what someone like Sarah may have gone through and how the girls her age on the other side might have behaved as they were indoctrinated.
He is a spy. He is very good at what he does but Sarah has talents of her own and becomes an apprentice of sorts because he can use her, she insists, since she is a very smart little girl. She is sent to an elite Nazi boarding school to infiltrate them and get herself into places he cannot.
I suppose I am only vaguely surprised that this was classified into the YA genre since it is much darker and real than most things you would find here. Death, violence, and even a paedophile. Mind, there is nothing that a parent might find suspect enough to keep their YA reader away from this; any reader coming into this should have at least a basic historical knowledge of Europe in this time period and what the Jewish people were forced to go through. All in all, it was a really good read and gave an insight (even if fictional) into what someone like Sarah may have gone through and how the girls her age on the other side might have behaved as they were indoctrinated.
I really loved this book, it gives a different perspective of the events of WW2. It helped me to remember that the tragedy is not only in the people that died in concentration camps, but also in those who remained at the core of the event and ha to fight for their survival
The relationships are mostly commercial, there is no time for real connections when the thing you are playing for is your life.
The new one of this series is coming out in spring and I can't wait to read it!
The relationships are mostly commercial, there is no time for real connections when the thing you are playing for is your life.
The new one of this series is coming out in spring and I can't wait to read it!
Graded By: Stephanie
Cover Story: Seeing Red
BFF Charm: Destiny’s Child
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
Talky Talk: Pulling No Punches
Bonus Factors: Spies, Human Nature, German Swear Words
Anti-Bonus Factors: Evil Boarding School, Nazis
Relationship Status: And How Does That Make You Feel?
Read the full book report here.
Cover Story: Seeing Red
BFF Charm: Destiny’s Child
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
Talky Talk: Pulling No Punches
Bonus Factors: Spies, Human Nature, German Swear Words
Anti-Bonus Factors: Evil Boarding School, Nazis
Relationship Status: And How Does That Make You Feel?
Read the full book report here.
The ending of this book gets into some really interesting territory. The writing, especially in the end, is sharp and often clever in its metaphors and descriptions, and it really picks up into a dramatic yet deeply personal narrative.
That does not mean that its too-long, boring, overdone beginning can be forgiven. I get what it was setting up, but as much as I liked the second half, the emotional payoff was not so strong as to warrant such a long and weak beginning. The writing is also just not as good; honestly, the writing is as good as what it's describing, and again, the novel's front half is pretty weak. Compared to the insane, truly horrifying shit that goes down in the latter half, the time spent with the Nazi mean girls feels closer to The Clique or Gossip Girl than Nazi Germany. And there's a way that that could work; it simply didn’t here.
If you like these WWII thrillers, this one is pretty decent. I would never say that you should only read the second half of a book, but seriously, it's a bit of a slog to get to the stuff that feels more important and impactful. Not that the other stuff isn’t; clearly, those experiences are just as valid. But they don't carry the front half in the way that they should.
3/5 stars
That does not mean that its too-long, boring, overdone beginning can be forgiven. I get what it was setting up, but as much as I liked the second half, the emotional payoff was not so strong as to warrant such a long and weak beginning. The writing is also just not as good; honestly, the writing is as good as what it's describing, and again, the novel's front half is pretty weak. Compared to the insane, truly horrifying shit that goes down in the latter half, the time spent with the Nazi mean girls feels closer to The Clique or Gossip Girl than Nazi Germany. And there's a way that that could work; it simply didn’t here.
If you like these WWII thrillers, this one is pretty decent. I would never say that you should only read the second half of a book, but seriously, it's a bit of a slog to get to the stuff that feels more important and impactful. Not that the other stuff isn’t; clearly, those experiences are just as valid. But they don't carry the front half in the way that they should.
3/5 stars
“A few short years ago, the Nazi Party was some angry men in one beer hall. Germany had no army, wasn't allowed an army. Don't underestimate them. That's been everyone's mistake.”
I've been having some serious cravings for WWII historical fiction and this was a great book to pick up! I'm so glad I read it and I look forward to more WW books like Code Name Verity.
The writing was well done and even cheeky at times, really made me laugh out loud a few times. This may be not a popular opinion but I liked looking up words in German throughout the book even if the translation was supplied in the next sentence. I especially looking up how the words were pronounced, which I think helped me get carried away in the story. Though there were a couple of times lines were repeated, for example, how the author Matt Killeen, described young soldiers who were barely able to fit into their uniforms. However, I loved how Killeen wrote Sarah with intelligence, innocence that was appropriate for her age and how the innocence was affected by terrible moments she has to witness. How her innocence was cracked, but not completely gone. I loved his attention to detail for each character.
Speaking of Sarah, I thought she was a wonderful character; she was so smart and intuitive. I loved reading her inner dialogue, how she used fear as a strength and push her beyond her limits. She was so kind when she wanted to be; she was a defender of those who were in need of help, who were seen as weaker than her. I enjoyed seeing Sarah as a spy, of course, she made bad choices sometimes, but she was a good spy overall especially with the help of Captain Floyd. I appreciated the dynamic between Sarah and Captain Floyd, I guess I'm very cynical and I was very scared of where their relationship will go, but was all friendly.
My heart feels for every character, no one ever really 'wins' in Nazi Germany no matter what side they were on. I'm just glad the world managed to extinguish the evil and end the awful, horrible acts.
The writing was well done and even cheeky at times, really made me laugh out loud a few times. This may be not a popular opinion but I liked looking up words in German throughout the book even if the translation was supplied in the next sentence. I especially looking up how the words were pronounced, which I think helped me get carried away in the story. Though there were a couple of times lines were repeated, for example, how the author Matt Killeen, described young soldiers who were barely able to fit into their uniforms. However, I loved how Killeen wrote Sarah with intelligence, innocence that was appropriate for her age and how the innocence was affected by terrible moments she has to witness. How her innocence was cracked, but not completely gone. I loved his attention to detail for each character.
Speaking of Sarah, I thought she was a wonderful character; she was so smart and intuitive. I loved reading her inner dialogue, how she used fear as a strength and push her beyond her limits. She was so kind when she wanted to be; she was a defender of those who were in need of help, who were seen as weaker than her. I enjoyed seeing Sarah as a spy, of course, she made bad choices sometimes, but she was a good spy overall especially with the help of Captain Floyd. I appreciated the dynamic between Sarah and Captain Floyd, I guess I'm very cynical and I was very scared of where their relationship will go, but was all friendly.
My heart feels for every character, no one ever really 'wins' in Nazi Germany no matter what side they were on. I'm just glad the world managed to extinguish the evil and end the awful, horrible acts.