I purposefully avoid short stories on audiobook, and this came emblazoned with "A NOVEL" on the cover. However, it's really a series of glimpses into the lives of people from Berlin during and after WWII. I think I would have gotten more out of the book if I'd read it in print, or there were different narrators. Sometimes the vignettes would begin and I wouldn't know what kind of character I was listening to because it was the same British-accented woman narrating all these Berliners and Cubans and even Chileans occasionally. It was disorienting.

There are memorable moments, details that I won't soon forget, including an imprisoned Cuban, a woman whose husband entombs her to keep her safe, and how García ties South America into Berliner history. I think I'd recommend this in print, though I didn't get much out of the audio. I personally haven't been much interested in WWII stories lately, listening to this as I walked past 56th Street every day, cordoned off with NYPD security since 2016 because a certain president's tower is nearby. I especially haven't been interested in the ones about those who were complicit though perhaps not legally criminal. It can feel suffocating...and dark. There is something to search for in these stories, but I am too weary to examine the parallels that exist today.