I was so excited by the premise of this book, and the historical setting it explored. It was great to see the world of cultural resistance in war-time Berlin, the underground swing movement, and the people who participated.

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Unfortunately, the book itself was a bit of a disappointment. The main character, Charlie, didn’t have any strong motivations or a compelling character arc. The book spanned nearly seven years but there wasn’t even much of a sense that she had aged, let alone any other indication that she had any sort of emotional journey. There was no emotional connection to the main romance, which sort of came out of nowhere, and was undermined by the fact it was clear Charlie felt she was with her second choice (which is a shame, as Renate – the love interest she ends up with – was the most compelling character in the whole book and should have had more airtime).

While the setting was an interesting one, and the main draw of the book, it ultimately didn’t have much emotional or dramatic impact on the characters until the final chapters. At the start of the book Charlie is relatively oblivious to world around her, but the closest we got to any actual reconciliation with that was when she first realised that Jewish people were being targeted, and then we were told she was sad when her Jewish friends moved away. It would almost have been more compelling if she had started from a place of agreeing with the “values” (Kinde, Küche, Kirche) drilled into her, and started to question them. Instead she had a very vague understanding of Nazis-are-bad the whole way through.

In our modern minds, the figures and symbols of the Third Reich have (quite rightfully so) become synonymous with evil and villainy, and it felt like the author took that for granted rather than show the characters having that understanding or epiphany. I desperately wanted Charlie to have at least a small moment of righteous anger, if not actively trying to do something about the world she was in, even on a tiny scale. At best the setting felt divorced from the characters, but at worst it made the characters almost unrealistically oblivious.

This was a book with a lot of potential, but ultimately it didn’t hold any emotional or dramatic impact for me.

Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy for review. All opinions are my own.