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A review by csgiansante
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson
4.0
Larsen knows how to make narrative non-fiction interesting. It's another well written an enjoyable book, but I don't know if it's his best.
To focus on such a specific time period when the surrounding historical context is generally known makes it hard to feel sympathy for anyone in the book. Also, for such a tight focus to be placed on this one year period, there were a number of loose ends that didn't get tied up (even in the epilogue). While the actual event that closes off the book was a terrible part of human history, the book kind of ends with a whimper and goes for a bureaucratic approach to it.
Anyway, still a good Larsen output, but I've liked some of his other books more!
To focus on such a specific time period when the surrounding historical context is generally known makes it hard to feel sympathy for anyone in the book. Also, for such a tight focus to be placed on this one year period, there were a number of loose ends that didn't get tied up (even in the epilogue). While the actual event that closes off the book was a terrible part of human history, the book kind of ends with a whimper and goes for a bureaucratic approach to it.
Anyway, still a good Larsen output, but I've liked some of his other books more!