This book was a lot. It was only 325 pages, but it felt like so much more! I initially thought it would be a quick, read in one sitting read, and then I realized yes, that’s how it should be read. Because if you don’t read this in one sitting, or end at one of the parts, you’ll have no idea what’s going on or where you ended.
Wins:
-it’s a side of WW2 that I have never heard talked about, I liked the fact that it was 20 years later and during the trials
-character progression: just with Eva. Throughout the trial she begins to find things out and is changed as a person
-the foreshadowing into the blindside shock. The twists were pretty good. Didn’t expect some of them
Opportunities:
-BREAK IT UP. There were literally paragraphs that went on for 3 pages, single paragraphs, where the dialogue wasn’t broken up into different sections, the paragraphs went on forever, over explained and took what felt like hours to get through
-no chapters. This goes with the above. It felt like if I needed to take my dog out, or get a drink, there were no stopping points for 50 pages, and then coming back it would take me 5 minutes to figure out where I left off
-the random switching povs with no break, spaces, paragraph changes, just BOOM, we’re following someone else.
-the romance was awful. I hate Jürgen. I think he’s an awful character, and their entire relationship was one muddy mess that I had no idea what was going on. It was super confusing, and he was a VERY unlikeable character.
-the pointless additions. We kept flashing back to completely irrelevant other sides to the story that just felt like glue trying to form some kind of plot, which leads me to:
-what was the plot?
I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought i would. I claimed it with points on Bookish First because I was that excited, and I’m super disappointed. It was honestly an exhausting read, and not due to World War 2 content, because I felt like if I took any breaks in this book after putting it down the first time, I wasn’t going to pick it back up. All the characters were kind of annoying, there really wasn’t a plot, and there was a lot of garbage trying to make it a full length novel. The trials were actually really interesting to read about, but those were almost skimmed over. I probably will not be picking this up in the near future.
Wins:
-it’s a side of WW2 that I have never heard talked about, I liked the fact that it was 20 years later and during the trials
-character progression: just with Eva. Throughout the trial she begins to find things out and is changed as a person
-the foreshadowing into the blindside shock. The twists were pretty good. Didn’t expect some of them
Opportunities:
-BREAK IT UP. There were literally paragraphs that went on for 3 pages, single paragraphs, where the dialogue wasn’t broken up into different sections, the paragraphs went on forever, over explained and took what felt like hours to get through
-no chapters. This goes with the above. It felt like if I needed to take my dog out, or get a drink, there were no stopping points for 50 pages, and then coming back it would take me 5 minutes to figure out where I left off
-the random switching povs with no break, spaces, paragraph changes, just BOOM, we’re following someone else.
-the romance was awful. I hate Jürgen. I think he’s an awful character, and their entire relationship was one muddy mess that I had no idea what was going on. It was super confusing, and he was a VERY unlikeable character.
-the pointless additions. We kept flashing back to completely irrelevant other sides to the story that just felt like glue trying to form some kind of plot, which leads me to:
-what was the plot?
I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought i would. I claimed it with points on Bookish First because I was that excited, and I’m super disappointed. It was honestly an exhausting read, and not due to World War 2 content, because I felt like if I took any breaks in this book after putting it down the first time, I wasn’t going to pick it back up. All the characters were kind of annoying, there really wasn’t a plot, and there was a lot of garbage trying to make it a full length novel. The trials were actually really interesting to read about, but those were almost skimmed over. I probably will not be picking this up in the near future.