3.5 Stars (Outliner opinion) 

Helena and Katrin are best friends living in East Germany. The country is in turmoil with the Berlin Wall diving both sides and people torn apart or wanting to take any risk for a better life. Helana has to come to terms with the changes and make decisions that could affect her and others. How does the sociopolitical situation affect the citizens’ lives, and how does music help Helena? 

The story comes in poetic verse narration from Helena’s POV. 

First things first… The book is set in 1989. It is Not historical fiction… Grr! 

I quite enjoy novels in verse. Though, TBH, I read the poems like prose to avoid being distracted by the uneven rhythm. Both options didn’t work here. The content is pretty much sentences broken into lines of random length. While it works in some places, it doesn’t in others. 

Presenting a complex theme like this in verse isn’t easy. As you can see, the results are mixed for me. It took a while (almost half the book) to get into the flow. I could feel the impact only in the last quarter. 

Helena is an introverted sixteen-year-old, sheltered but also aware of the situation, a little rebellious without ignoring safety concerns. Most importantly, music and her best friend Katrin are very important to her (parents, too, of course). 

While the entire book has a sense of melancholy and uncertainty, there are glimpses of hope and certainty that come from stubborn determination. 

Despite the supposed intensity of emotions and the situation, I couldn’t connect to the character or the setting. I feel it would have worked better if the story was in proper prose with some poems interwoven into the narrative. The scenes where Helena feels music in nature and her love for music read well in poetry. The rest of it would benefit from a better structure. 

Nevertheless, the ending is quite nice, hopeful, and heartwarming. The last section is the strongest, IMO. 

There’s a detailed author’s note with more information (and reference links) about the context- the real nonviolent marches, the role of music, and the results. There’s some personal information, too (unrelated to the story). My heartfelt condolences to her. 

To summarize, Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams deals with beautiful and important themes from a critical part of the world’s history. It’s the presentation that didn’t appeal much to me. 

I am very much on the outliner island (the only 3-star when it was posted), so please check the other reviews before you decide. 

Thank you, NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. 

#NetGalley #SongofFreedomSongofDreams