Helpful Score: 2
Exceptionally powerful. An intimate look at the lives of ordinary people living on the inside of Nazi terrorism during WWII, and their efforts to resist them. The reader is involved with the characters and their fight from the first sentence. The fear is palpable. So is the passion, the sympathy and the triumph. I definitely recommend this book! D.
Helpful Score: 1
What the heck is a German glance? I have a German mother, I was raised and educated in Germany but I do not understand what a German glance is... a recurring action in this tomb. There were other fantastic and non-German colloquialisms but too many to list.
I could not wrap my mind around this story because it did not capture the German culture well especially women... an american author portraying German women during the war is just not feasible. I wanted to like this book, I trudged through it and to be fair I finished it (I cringed a lot).
I could not wrap my mind around this story because it did not capture the German culture well especially women... an american author portraying German women during the war is just not feasible. I wanted to like this book, I trudged through it and to be fair I finished it (I cringed a lot).
CITY OF WOMEN was the June 2013 pick in my online book club, The Reading Cove.
The most interesting thing about the story is the setting: Berlin, 1943. The timeline flipped back and forth in a confusing vs. clever way, as the author gave no indication that something was taking place in the past - the reader must figure that out for himself.
On top of that, most of us found the narrative flat, dull and disengaging. I tried to engage, because for me, it was a first look at the Holocaust from within Germany itself, but it never pulled me in and I never connected with Sigrid and her affairs, her heroic efforts to help people, etc. I just don't think the author did this slice of history much justice at all...
Readers who don't mind a series of (uneventful) events may be able to overlook the dreariness and enjoy the story or identify with certain aspects of its characters and events.
Unfortunately, after mostly struggling through the first 100 pages (mainly because it was a book club pick ;) I had to skim heavily to reach the end.
So I give it a C- and rename it: City of Yawning.
The most interesting thing about the story is the setting: Berlin, 1943. The timeline flipped back and forth in a confusing vs. clever way, as the author gave no indication that something was taking place in the past - the reader must figure that out for himself.
On top of that, most of us found the narrative flat, dull and disengaging. I tried to engage, because for me, it was a first look at the Holocaust from within Germany itself, but it never pulled me in and I never connected with Sigrid and her affairs, her heroic efforts to help people, etc. I just don't think the author did this slice of history much justice at all...
Readers who don't mind a series of (uneventful) events may be able to overlook the dreariness and enjoy the story or identify with certain aspects of its characters and events.
Unfortunately, after mostly struggling through the first 100 pages (mainly because it was a book club pick ;) I had to skim heavily to reach the end.
So I give it a C- and rename it: City of Yawning.
I saw a copy of this book at Barnes and Noble a couple of years ago and after reading the cover blurbs, put it on my wishlist at PaperbackSwap.com. Received a copy from them a few months ago and finally got around to reading it. It was a somewhat difficult book to read given the subject matter but as the novel developed, it kept me interested and turning the pages.
The novel takes place in Berlin in 1943 at the height of WWII. The novel is called "City of Women" because most of the adult male population has been drawn into the Nazi war machine. Berlin is a place where the remaining Germans are living lives to avoid the police, where a wrong word slipped against the powers that be could lead to torture or to a Nazi concentration camp. This is the world where Sigrid Schroder lives with her mother-in-law while her husband is serving in the army on the Russian front. Sigrid meets one of her neighbors, a young woman named Ericha, at a local cinema who begs Sigrid to tell the local police the she came to the cinema with Ericha. The police suspected Ericha of crimes against the State. Sigrid subsequently gets involved in helping Ericha protect and hide Jews from the Gestapo in a sort of underground railway. This reminded me somewhat of Anne Frank's story. Sigrid also meets a Jewish man at the cinema who becomes her lover but can she trust him?
I was really unaware of how the everyday citizenry of Germany were affected by the war and how some acted against the Nazi policies while others just demurely went along with them even though they witnessed Jews being rounded up in the streets and sent away to concentration camps. Overall, this was a very engaging novel highlighting the brutality of the Nazis, the fear of the citizens and how some were trying to be redeemed in a very difficult situation.
The novel takes place in Berlin in 1943 at the height of WWII. The novel is called "City of Women" because most of the adult male population has been drawn into the Nazi war machine. Berlin is a place where the remaining Germans are living lives to avoid the police, where a wrong word slipped against the powers that be could lead to torture or to a Nazi concentration camp. This is the world where Sigrid Schroder lives with her mother-in-law while her husband is serving in the army on the Russian front. Sigrid meets one of her neighbors, a young woman named Ericha, at a local cinema who begs Sigrid to tell the local police the she came to the cinema with Ericha. The police suspected Ericha of crimes against the State. Sigrid subsequently gets involved in helping Ericha protect and hide Jews from the Gestapo in a sort of underground railway. This reminded me somewhat of Anne Frank's story. Sigrid also meets a Jewish man at the cinema who becomes her lover but can she trust him?
I was really unaware of how the everyday citizenry of Germany were affected by the war and how some acted against the Nazi policies while others just demurely went along with them even though they witnessed Jews being rounded up in the streets and sent away to concentration camps. Overall, this was a very engaging novel highlighting the brutality of the Nazis, the fear of the citizens and how some were trying to be redeemed in a very difficult situation.
This is the story of a German woman in 1943 Berlin who reluctantly gets into hiding Jews from the Nazis. It tells a lot about how hard it was for the German people during the final stages of the war and their general lack of faith in each other. It was kind of a tell on each other society (including family)to get in good with the Nazi regime. Many of the people seemed cold-hearted. War was hard on the common people. I did not like some of the sexual situations, but otherwise recommend it.
