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A review by paperprivateer
Westfallen by Ben Brashares, Ann Brashares
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
The number one rule with time travel or communicating through time is to make sure no one from the future does anything to affect the past. Apparently, the characters from this book aren’t aware of that, making them end up in a situation where Nazi Germany won the war.
I liked the gradual build the book had. At first, it seemed like it might just be about friends that grew apart. Then it’s about mysterious communication, and you slowly discover who they’re communicating with and why it’s remarkable. And then you end up in Nazi America. That gives the weightiness of some of the topics to build up without being overwhelming all at once. With a modern-day Nazi regime being a pretty heavy topic, especially for a middle-grade book, the intriguing build gives time and room to adjust to what’s happening. However, I could see the build being a drag for some readers if they aren’t as intrigued by the time travel experiments because it takes some time to get going.
A common trope in time travel media is how change in the past can affect the future, and this book has many interesting interpretations of that. The main characters actively do experiments to try to figure out how time travel works. The ways the kids could communicate through time and experiment were intriguing and unique.
I thought six characters was a lot for a book of this size. It’s hard to get to know each character and keep track of which kid is a part of which group. After reading the book, I don't think I could identify any of the characters with the correct names in a lineup. There are so few hints about the character’s families, how they might be related or who might influence things, making the characters hard to identify with or tell apart. I think some of the characters may specifically have been put in so that their identities in a world ruled by Nazis could be explored better, not because they were good stand-alone characters. We needed a Jewish kid and a Black kid, but it seems like maybe we didn’t need those kids to be that developed. I hope their personalities and backgrounds get a lot more expansion in future books.
The book ends in a cliffhanger. I usually hate that, but I didn’t mind it too much in this case. A lot of things felt wrapped up, so it felt like a natural hook for the next book rather than the kind of cliffhanger that is particularly annoying. I will likely pick up the next book not just because of the ending but because I’m curious about where it will go, and I enjoyed this book.
This is an intriguing book for people interested in history and time travel -- or for those who have morbid curiosity about a modern world under Nazi control.
I liked the gradual build the book had. At first, it seemed like it might just be about friends that grew apart. Then it’s about mysterious communication, and you slowly discover who they’re communicating with and why it’s remarkable. And then you end up in Nazi America. That gives the weightiness of some of the topics to build up without being overwhelming all at once. With a modern-day Nazi regime being a pretty heavy topic, especially for a middle-grade book, the intriguing build gives time and room to adjust to what’s happening. However, I could see the build being a drag for some readers if they aren’t as intrigued by the time travel experiments because it takes some time to get going.
A common trope in time travel media is how change in the past can affect the future, and this book has many interesting interpretations of that. The main characters actively do experiments to try to figure out how time travel works. The ways the kids could communicate through time and experiment were intriguing and unique.
I thought six characters was a lot for a book of this size. It’s hard to get to know each character and keep track of which kid is a part of which group. After reading the book, I don't think I could identify any of the characters with the correct names in a lineup. There are so few hints about the character’s families, how they might be related or who might influence things, making the characters hard to identify with or tell apart. I think some of the characters may specifically have been put in so that their identities in a world ruled by Nazis could be explored better, not because they were good stand-alone characters. We needed a Jewish kid and a Black kid, but it seems like maybe we didn’t need those kids to be that developed. I hope their personalities and backgrounds get a lot more expansion in future books.
The book ends in a cliffhanger. I usually hate that, but I didn’t mind it too much in this case. A lot of things felt wrapped up, so it felt like a natural hook for the next book rather than the kind of cliffhanger that is particularly annoying. I will likely pick up the next book not just because of the ending but because I’m curious about where it will go, and I enjoyed this book.
This is an intriguing book for people interested in history and time travel -- or for those who have morbid curiosity about a modern world under Nazi control.