Review of Prisoner Of Night And Fog by Anne Blankman

Format: eBook (for review)
Genres: historical, ww2, romance,
Pages: 352
Publisher: Headline
Release Date: 22/04/2014
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


Gretchen Muller has, as best she can, dealt with the horrors of her family's past. Her father, a senior Nazi officer, died to save the life of their leader, Adolf Hitler. And now Germany has the chance to be great once more. Swept up in the excitement and passion of life in Munich in 1931, seventeen-year-old Gretchen has embraced the life laid out for her by that leader, her 'Uncle Dolf'.

But the secrets of the past cannot be silenced forever. When Gretchen receives a letter from an anonymous sender claiming to have more information about her father's death, she becomes swept up in a desperate and dangerous search for the truth. With the full might of the ever-powerful Nazi party on her tail, it is a race that will risk everything she has and change her life forever...


Adolph Hitler is a bit like an onion... he has a lot of layers. (Inappropriate Shrek reference). I thought I knew Hitler pretty well by now, I know of his art and his love of Eva Braun and of course, all the horrors that he created. After reading Prisoner of Night and Fog however, I feel like I know him a lot more. Creepily a lot more. Writing about Hitler, about someone who knew him, was always going to be a tough subject and I feel that Anne Blankman was the perfect person to attempt this feat. 

The naiive female character may seem overdone, however in this Gretchen seemed almost needed, as she gave us an insight into what the non-Jewish residents of Germany were thinking the Jews were at the time and I learnt a lot from her. Gretchen doesn't stay naiive however, she's a very strong character that won't hold back from finding out the truth about her father's death, no matter what lengths she had to go to. She gets battered and bruised physically and mentally a lot of times but never gives up. I really admired her!

There is some romance in this, which I enjoyed. It didn't get in the way of the story and I think it helped the story, if anything. Peter, being Jewish, adds a lot of suspense and it's him that makes Gretchen see that all that she's been told by Hitler about Jews is a complete lie.

Speaking of Hitler, you really get to know him in this story. He appears a lot in this, Gretchen being one of his pets after all, and there's a few scenes about him that were seriously creepy and made me feel uncomfortable at times. This book covers his origins, before he really came into power so I'm looking forward to the sequel in a way but also worried for a lot of the characters in the story, particularly the Jewish ones.

You learn a lot of the history of the beginnings of the second world war, however, I didn't feel that there were any info-dumps. I've been the subject of historical info-dumps in the past (there's a joke there somewhere) and I was not appreciative of them at all but I don't ever remember feeling bored at any point during this book.

Prisoner of Night and Fog was researched thoroughly, and it really paid off. A lot of characters that are in the book were real people and Anne's research into Hitler's life and Germany at that time really helped me believe the story and I could almost believe that this was a real story, not a work of fiction. There were some other things I wanted to happen in the story that didn't, but I'm sure that these will all be mentioned in the sequel - mostly what happened to the characters during and after the war.



Comments

  1. I didn't really "feel" this one. I mean, I liked it and I definitely felt educated after it...buuuut, I felt a bit out of touch with the whole thing. Bit bored in places. I think Gretchen was really realistic and I liked her relationship with Daniel. But WHY did Daniel want to help her?? What did I miss there?

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  2. Anonymous6:24 am BST

    I really loved this book. I didn't expect to like it so much! Glad that you enjoyed it so much as well. Great review! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This book looks so good! I really want to read it!

    Katrina @ Chased By My Imagination

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