Ryan Armstrong

Starting off with a 9 year old Hans Beck, the story is dark and gritty. Hans’s father is a ruthless, horrible man and Hans is forced into doing something he regrets the rest of his life. Afterwards, there’s the orphanage with Sister Claire and eventually a family (the Becks) with a young son (Erich) who adopt him. However, it’s not all roses and sunshine going forward. Hans is a good lad who throws his loyalty behind his adoptive brother, a choice he regrets often thereafter.

All of that part of the book was really well done. I connected with Hans and wanted the best for him. His story really sucked me in and I wanted to know how things would turn out for him. The tale springs forward several years and now Hans is in his mid-20s, having served in the infantry and now in the SS along with his sadistic adoptive brother. Even this part is riveting! There’s all sorts of bad things going on and Hans’s good-hearted reactions really pulled on my feelings. He’s a good guy trapped in one bad situation after another as WWII rages on.

Then a vicious thing happens to Lilo, a teen-age girl on the cusp of womanhood and Hans has to choose between helping her or turning a blind eye. It’s not an easy choice as it would involve taking on a fellow Nazi to save a Jewish girl. Of course, things all go sideways real quick and Erich finds out. He forces Hans into yet another bitter choice. At this point, I’m still really into the story. I want Hans to wind his way through all this and come out with most of his morals intact. I’m even starting to care about Lilo, though she’s mostly just a place holder for all Jewish people the Nazis ever messed up.

Then the insta-luv happens and that really took the wind out the sails for me. Yep. The drama mostly shifts to this empty love scenario and that just didn’t sit well with me. Lilo has been sexually assaulted, threatened repeatedly with torture and death, and one of the first things she says to Hans is, ‘Do you think I’m pretty?’. Sigh…. Lilo just didn’t hold up well as a character because she’s built on these cliches.

Hans’s character suffers too as he now puts all his being into this new found love. There’s so much drama over it too. I felt there was already plenty going on (like fleeing from certain death by Nazis) that the plot would have held up fine without this.

In the end, not everyone makes it out alive. Hans has many more dramatic moments and he doesn’t always make the right decisions. I think the author showed his great potential in the first half of the book and I hope we see more of that in the future. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Christopher Sherwood did a pretty good job with this performance. I really loved that he used a light German accent throughout the story. It really made it possible to believe the setting of Nazi Germany. His characters voices weren’t always distinct and his female and little kid voices could use a bit of work. His pacing is perfect and he did an awesome job with the myriad of emotions in this tale. 4/5 stars.… (más)