I suggested this book to "L" because her mom grew up in Nazi Germany; she was a teen/young adult, thus she lived through much. Understandably, L's mom was closed-mouth about her experiences, which left L wondering. So we thought this might be a book to shed some light on the topic.
The book begins slow, which meant pushing through the early chapters. Later in the book, we hear a lot of history. There are already tons of history books. What we were hoping for was what the subtitle of the book promised -- A German Woman's Story of Family Secrets. That is not what this book delivered.
There were definitely heartbreaking history that I hadn't heard before. But there was none of the true sharing of what it felt like to be German, living through Nazi Germany under Hitler. We wanted the feelings, the visceral emotions. Instead, what is written is history.
Oh, and because I'm a writer myself, I need to point out that typos are never okay in books. Especially when there's more than one, which in this one, I counted at least four (eg, "rather that" vs "rather than") and "prize apart" vs "prise apart."
This book might be perfect for someone out there, but it didn't deliver on what L and myself were looking for.
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