Stephanie Jane recenzis The German girl de Armando Lucas Correa
YA WW2 novel
3 steloj
The German Girl is a dual timeline novel which tells of the experiences of two twelve year old girls, Hannah and Anna, seventy five years apart. The story is told from their alternating perspectives so, as readers, we only understand as much of what is going on around them as Hannah and Anna do. I quite liked this approach because it gave an engaging immediacy to the narration, however it was also occasionally frustrating because I wanted greater depth of information about certain events that the girls only alluded to in passing. I was also disappointed at how passive all the adult women are. I understand that Correa wanted to demonstrate parallels between Hannah and Anna, but having both their mothers disengage from general life so similarly seemed forced to me.
I did appreciate the opportunity to learn the story of the St Louis exodus which I don't think I'd …
The German Girl is a dual timeline novel which tells of the experiences of two twelve year old girls, Hannah and Anna, seventy five years apart. The story is told from their alternating perspectives so, as readers, we only understand as much of what is going on around them as Hannah and Anna do. I quite liked this approach because it gave an engaging immediacy to the narration, however it was also occasionally frustrating because I wanted greater depth of information about certain events that the girls only alluded to in passing. I was also disappointed at how passive all the adult women are. I understand that Correa wanted to demonstrate parallels between Hannah and Anna, but having both their mothers disengage from general life so similarly seemed forced to me.
I did appreciate the opportunity to learn the story of the St Louis exodus which I don't think I'd read before although the 'Benitez visas' idea seemed familiar to me so I think I had previously heard of that aspect of it at least. The German Girl describes a less harrowing side to the Jewish ethic cleansing during World War Two and the prose style necessitated by its young narrators made this novel feel like a young adult read rather than historical war fiction, which isn't a detraction although it was initially unexpected. Overall I found this book to be a very readable fictionalisation of the St Louis tragedy.