This book sounded fascinating to me because while I've read fiction books about high ranking Nazi children, I'd never read nonfiction about it. I was very eager to learn more. However, I quickly realized why there aren't more books like this. There just isn't much information.

There are eight chapters (one per child) in 200 pages (I'm not including the introduction, conclusion, or bibliography) which comes out to just 25 pages per child. That's not a lot of time to discuss their lives. And within those 25 pages, you also get a summary of their father's life and what he did during the war. There's barely any time actually focused on the children and what it was like for them.

And also, that information just doesn't exist. A lot of the children went on to live private lives, not talking about their fathers publicly for obvious reasons. A lot of them avoided the media. It's just hard to compile a book like this when there isn't available information and only one of the children was willing and available to speak to the author.

I feel like you probably could have googled these men and read the personal life section of their wikipedia page to get basically the same information. I did enjoy some of the information I learned, but their honestly wasn't enough of it to warrant a book in my opinion.

I found it really disappointing. I couldn't recommend this.

This is probably my favorite of the Lisa Scottoline books I've read and uh I don't like Lisa Scottoline. I kept thinking I just needed to find the right book of hers to enjoy, but I just don't like her writing style, characters, or plots. So basically anything about her books.

Mary's family is annoying, especially her father. He's hard of hearing and shouts all his dialogue which Scottoline illustrates by using all caps. Not a fan. None of his buddies can hear and one of them speaks partially in Italian so there was one car ride with all of them that read like a who's on first skit. I was not amused.

The case was more interesting than some of her other cases, but it suffered from the same problem as her others that it was so far in the past it didn't feel like a very present danger. Until of course it becomes cartoonishly so at the end.

And god the ending. The big case culminated with someone trying to kill Mary (this seems fairly standard.) The person was arrested and another someone who was much more powerful came forward and admitted some level of guilt with a plea deal while still blaming the first person almost entirely. Which seemed questionable? But everyone in the story took this at face value. Like would you not question that maybe the super powerful person was maybe the one who orchestrated everything? Not saying that's the case, but I at least expected someone to wonder that. Nope, why would anyone involved in a murder and many other crimes lie to save their own ass. It pissed me off right at the very end.

I didn't realize this was the first in the series, but I guess I read a variety. I don't understand why people like Scottoline. I tried, really. Every bad book I kept thinking was maybe a fluke, but now I'm done. I don't recommend her books, but she seems rather popular so who knows. It confuses me.

I honestly did not expect to enjoy this book so much. I expected something standard and maybe a bit bland, but I loved this. I was so interesting and raw and genuinely felt honest and reflective in a way many memoirs don't to me. Wambach didn't shy away from her faults and came across as someone who put a lot of thought into writing a book that shared herself as a person.

Glad I read this as an adult because I think twelve year old me would have been shook to the core that her favorite player didn't even like soccer lol.

I don't really know what to say about this. It's a sports memoir. If you follow Wambach at all, I'd recommend this. I think it's fascinating and well written. But I also think there's not enough here for someone who isn't a fan. I'm glad this was better than I expected, though, and I genuinely felt like I came away with a better understanding of who Wambach is.

I love soulmate AUs. So much. I don't care if it's a science-y thing or a fantasy thing- I just love the concept of soul mate AUs. There's so much to explore and so many things that can happen. How do you react to knowing with certainty that this perfect stranger is your soul mate? Or when they are your soul mate but you feel nothing? Or your significant other isn't your soul mate? Like it's just a study of humanity and who people are. It fascinates me so I knew I was going to enjoy this book.

I really enjoyed all the different couples. The variety was interesting and since there are so many possibilities, it was nice to see a few played out. I think all the relationships and situations were really well developed. There was no one who bored me.

One of the issues I had was with so many characters and such short chapters (they were usually only a couple pages), I sometimes forgot who was who. I wish there'd been a little more time with the characters before switching to someone new. I think that would have made it easier for me to keep up with everyone. It'd just be like three pages with one person, then fifteen pages before you saw them again.

I also felt like the chapters ended on cliffhangers too frequently. It felt like almost every chapter ended dramatically, either with a cliffhanger or a big reveal or just something to elicit a gasp. Which is fine with me usually, but the chapters were so short that it meant you were getting something like that every couple pages. It wound up feeling forced and annoying, and then eventually later in the book it became kind of cartoonish. It was just so unnecessary.

I don't think this is a thriller. It was described to me as a thriller, and while it is incredibly dark, I feel like it doesn't quite hit the thriller vibes. Like it has murder and sabotage and all that good stuff, but it doesn't feel like a thriller. To me it's more of a dark drama. I feel like going in with that expectation is a little better. Or at least it would have been for me.

This was great though. Like I loved the concept and Marrs' writing was great. I'm so glad I finally got to it and I'd highly recommend to anyone.

I'm a big fan of this series and this book is decent, although not my favorite. It's a look into the life of a boy who was part of the Donner party which was rather unfortunate. You feel for the kid and it's a really good insight into what happened for kids. I think it does a good job of really illustrating what was going on and why and the decisions being made, but all in a kid friendly way.

I think it was maybe a little young for the main character who was fifteen. Like maybe him being a touch younger might have helped some of the storytelling. But this was a good book and a great series.

This is probably one of my least favorites of this series (that I've read recently). I did enjoy it okay, but compared to some of the others I don't think it captures the time period very well. You get Prudence's world view, but it's so limited that you really don't see much of the outside world or the adult thought processes. I think there's a good way to capture a child's perspective while still showing the rest of the world and what's going on. And honestly, I think a lot of the other books in this series do it better.

Not bad and definitely great for kids, but not one that I think is particularly outstanding.

I almost don't want to write a review and waste more of my life on this book. I really hated it, and not only that but it was so long. It felt like I was reading it forever and yet somehow it never ended. I was so bored and I hated all the characters and I hated the storyline.

The most interesting part to me was when Billie was in France and her whole coming of age story. That was the only part that actually felt like a novel to me. The rest of it was more just about the life of this one store catering to the absurdly wealthy. It reminded me of when you play war with toys as a kid but 90% of the time is spent on setting up the battle and not actually fighting. Fun for play, not so much for the book. Nothing made me care.

I wouldn't recommend this. I don't know why anyone would enjoy this. I didn't. I wish I could forget it and I really wish I'd dnfed this. It's unfortunate I did not. I'm glad for anyone who likes this, but I truly cannot understand why.

This book is breathtaking. I love a book that's so magical I can't look away. Like the world completely ceases to exist because I'm so absorbed in this book. The writing is amazing. Whatever Liz Moore writes, her writing is always so gorgeous. It doesn't matter so much what the story is because just her writing alone is enough to blow me away. She makes any story worth reading.

The actually story of this was great, though. It's about a cop and her sister who's a drug addicted sex worker. The family relationships in this are beautifully captured, both negative and positive. It feels real. Like these people's lives are so fully formed that you can really see who they are. Everything about it was amazing.

I don't even know how to talk about this book and all the good things. It's stunning. Maybe not my favorite Liz Moore book, but The Unseen World is literally my favorite book of all time and this is possibly my favorite book since reading that one. She's an amazing writer and I can't recommend this enough.

You ever read a book that you can't review because it was too good?

This book is beautiful. I always enjoy Sonya Sones and she has a really lovely writing style, but I especially adored this one.

While all of her novels are written in verse, this one felt the most like straight poetry to me. There definitely is a narrative, but I feel like where a lot of her other novels are story first and poetry second, this one is a book of poetry set around a general theme. Her sister is hospitalized and these poems are more feelings than straight narration. I loved it.

The emotions are so strong in this book. It had me tearing up at points because it is sad, but Cookie feels so real. She's just a kid dealing with this situation and it's not always melodramatic or the worst thing happening, but it is her life. Sones is great at capturing small moments that really touch your heart.

It's such a short book and I kind of do wish there was a bit more length to it. That's the main reason it's stuck at four stars for me. 150 pages of poetry is not a lot of time and I flew through this in about twenty minutes. I loved it so much I just wish there was a little bit more of it to round out the story some more.

But this was fantastic, as are most of her books. If you like YA contemporaries and novels in verse, I'd highly recommend picking this up. It's such a lovely book and captures the struggles of a younger sister so well.

I loved the beginning of this book. Part 1 was entirely about Bess and the buildup to Bess finding out what happened to her missing daughter, and I was fascinated. I absolutely devoured it and couldn't look away. I love when a book grabs me so quickly and I really wanted to love the rest of it as much as the first hundred pages.

However, it kind of lost me when it changed perspective. It was Bess and Bess's story that drew me in, and when Alexandra started telling her story, my interest waned. It was obvious how she fit into the overall story, but I still didn't care. I loved Bess's fears and her character and her life. Alexandra was fine, but I struggled to care about her while caring about Bess was so easy. It was hard for me to get into the rest of the book even when we switched back to Bess. This is something I struggle with when it comes to multiple POV books sometimes. I just wasn't as interested in Alexandra and spent the whole time wishing to switch back to Bess.

This book seemed far too short for the story it was telling. My edition came in at under three hundred pages and there are two POV characters with two distinct stories. After about the two thirds mark, it felt incredibly rushed to me. Like it was all fascinating buildup, and then all of a sudden we skipped to the end and the drama in between got left behind. For example, there was a bit of romance in this book (not the main point, but still present). Two characters clearly have some kind of connection, but instead of building up that connection, it skips to their literal wedding after they share about three scenes. That's how the whole story felt for me. I needed more time with these characters and more time with the story itself.

It felt like the overall pacing was off. Bess doesn't even find out her daughter isn't at the hospital until fifty pages in, and then we change perspective about 80 pages in. It made this book feel like it was slow paced and introductory until all of a sudden everything happened at once and very quickly it was over.

I wasn't hugely fond of the ending. Perhaps it was just the pace of the book, but the characters basically went from screaming bloody murder to hugging like BFFs in a single conversation. I didn't really understand their motivations or sometimes what exactly was going on. Four pages were spent on what felt like needed thirty. I mostly just wanted more time.

I think with more time, and more exploration of the characters and the setting (which could have been fascinating but was largely a nonissue), I might have loved this book. It has the potential and given how much I enjoyed the beginning, Halls can write wonderfully well, but it fell short for me. It felt like this book only scraped the surface of what it could have been, which disappointed me more than the book itself.

*I read an uncorrected proof that I received for free with the intention of reviewing. I do not know how it differs from the final copy.*