A women trying to get answers to questions that she has held most of her life. Her mother had put her in an orphanage during the war, she never was told who her father was, she has minimal knowledge of her own mother. Why was she given up? She may be able to find some answers as her mothers ashes arrive to her with a box of letters that she hesitates to read. Will she get the answers to her questions or will she end up with even more.

I found this book difficult to follow. It bounced back and forth between multiple time periods and I kept having to go back and remind myself what was happening. I actually put it aside and returned to it later, I finished the book but was disappointed by Epstein's inability to draw me into the story. This is the kind of book I usually love, but I just couldn't make the connection I wanted to make.

I wanted to love this book because historical fiction is my favorite genre but I just could not get into the style of writing. Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

There's have been a lot of books out recently that cover World War 2 and particularly the lead up to the war and the horrors the Jews endured. This book gave an interesting twist with the triple time lines and multi country stories. I felt it worked well for the story of Ilse and Renate but Ava's timeline was complex and disjointed and I struggled to get a sense of who she was and how her upbringing had created the woman she now was.

I particularly liked the Berlin sections, how the world shrunk for Renate and her family, how people behaved during this period of history. It was written thoughtfully, passionately and carefully, leaving no awfulfulness out but finding moments of joy and friendship still in those times.

The end wasn't a surprise but I enjoyed the journey to get there. Worth a read if you liked 'The Nightingale'. I can see this being a fabulous movie.

Thank you to net galley for sending me an advanced copy for an honest review.

Wunderland was well written and told the tale of two different women and how their friendship, and lives, were changed by the Nazis and war, it effected everyone in their family and future families. This book was great for the wwii fan!

Thanks to Crown Publishing and #NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I first gained access to this book in September of 2018 but I didn't finish reading it until late November. There were a number of reasons for that - some of them personal and other obligations getting in the way but I also fond it a difficult book to read. The story is set in multiple time periods and moves back and forth between them. I was first drawn to reading it because of the WW2 theme which typically fascinates me but the early parts of the book just didn't resonate with me. It wasn't that the book was badly written. It was well-written, but when one of your main characters joins the The BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) and becomes thoroughly indoctrinated in the Nazi ideology you know that she is not going to be a particularly likeable character. The story focuses on the friendship between Ilsie, her Jewish friend Renate and Ilsie's daughter Ava.

Ava spent part of her early years in a German orphanage but was alter claimed by her mother who had survived the war in spite of indicators that made that seem unlikely. Her relationship with her mother has always been frought with angst and a feeling of distance and this came across in the author's writing. When the story begins Ava is a young mother herself and seems to be constantly in a state of struggle with her surroundings, her daughter and her mother. When she learns of her mother's death and receives a batch of letters written to a woman she has never heard of it sets off the movement between time periods as we gradually get to see the bigger picture of what it was like for Ilsie and Renate as the war was beginning and how that ultimately affected Ava.

The parts of the story that gripped me the most were those that focused on Renate and her experience first of all discovering that she was considered to be Jewish although she had no prior inkling of that and then seeing how the growing hatred of people who had once been her friends caused her life to change. The author clearly put a great effort into researching the time period and what it was like for the average German growing up as well as those who were subject to persecution. Life wasn't easy for either of them and watching Ilsie's decline from being a best friend to a distant stranger is an important thing for the reader to see as it could easily happen in our current era of stigmatization. It is also eye-opening to see the damage that was caused to her daughter as a result of this.

The further along I progressed in the book, the more gripping I found it to be. It had some twists and turns that I wasn't expecting and a sense of irony that was palpable. Although I struggled with liking Ilsie and Ava which held me back in my reading, the book was well worth persevering to the end. I would recommend it to those interested in learning more about this time period.

Wunderland is a heart wrenching story of love and loss during wartime. It is an eye-opening testament to the power of love.

Wunderland is a historical fiction novel that flip flops back and forth between 1933 and 1989. It follows the lives of 3 main characters. It’s difficult to sum up briefly, as a lot happens over the course of the novel that raise questions about the Hitler Youth movement.
Generally I’m a fan of historical fiction, but with this I felt disengaged because of how scattered the story felt, especially in the dialogue.

This is a beautifully written novel about the growth of Nazism in Germany and the lives of both Jewish and Gentile women and how it effected their lives. I highly recommended this book to fans of historical fiction.

I would like to thank the netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge.

This is a novel that takes place two countries, the US and Germany, during the time that the Nazi party and Hitler begin to separate themselves from Jews and anyone that likes/supports any Jews. The novel follows 3 main characters, Ilse and her best friend Renate, who they also find out is partly descended from Jewish heritage, and Ava who is Ilse's daughter, all from childhood to adulthood. The book is set in the 1930's and the 80's/90's, when Ava is grown with her own child.
Ilse is a "stone-cold German" in one respect and a coward in another respect. Renate is the opposite in a lot of ways with honest strength and emotion, mixed with a little clumsiness. Ava grows up trying to avoid being her mother, as many children do, but ending up like her in many ways despite this. In the end she plans to make her faults up to her daughter by using some newly gained knowledge from her mother. The story is greatly moving for many reasons. You watch all the characters grow through their experiences, and with the help of the world around them, including their families. I would definitely recommend anyone who enjoys historical fiction and can get through some difficult reading involving the Nazi occupation, give this book a try!

A World War II historical fiction book of a friendship between Gentile and Jewish girls. We follow their lives through the war and beyond, seeing their pain and secrets drive a wedge so deep it cannot be removed. Surprising secrets keep the reader intrigued, as they make their way through going back and forth between two timelines. Well written.

A story of the ages seen through multiple perspectives over the course of WW2 and later through history. This is a story of redemption, hate, love and the power of family. A story that gives an insight into three people what one person ideology can do not just in that moment of time, but the repercussions of that. A hard but intriguing story that one must find out on their own through the pages of this book.

At this point in my life I have read so many WW2-based novels and memoirs, that I’m either disappointed because the content is too overdone, or overjoyed because someone takes a new angle and delves into it to create a new story. I just finished Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein and all I can say is WOW. Jennifer Cody Epstein manages to recreate several eras and places that are so close to my heart, and weave together lives in a way that you literally cannot put the book down. I’m not kidding when I say I couldn’t put it down - I read Wunderland on my phone and was literally walking around the house doing chores half- heartedly with one hand while reading with the other.

Wunderland is the story of best friends Ilse and Renate in pre-war Berlin, and of Ava, Ilse’s daughter, as a small child and then teen in Berlin, as a young mother and then finally as a mother to a teenager in NYC. The novel skips between times and places, but I had no problem with that: it actually helped with the plot development and intrigue. I love novels that throw readers a breadcrumb here and there, along a winding trail, making you work for the storyline rather than just sitting along for the ride.

Jennifer Cody Epstein has amazing attention to detail, and the descriptions in the novel are brilliant. So brilliantly done that there are parts that play out in front of you, and you feel as if your eyes are glued to a window pane, unable to divert them elsewhere, as much as you want to. The depictions of Kristallnacht are so vivid and real, I actually had to breathe through the waves of nausea rolling through my body. (I had similar emotions reading Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance).

I also found that Jennifer Cody Epstein did a great job showing just how seamlessly the isolation of the Jewish people happened in Germany, and also how in general the rest of the German population just took it in their stride that people who were once their friends, neighbors, bakers, etc, were suddenly lesser humans. It never starts with the camps. It starts with a few people sowing seeds that then develop into believed truths, and then suddenly crowds are whipped into frenzies, and eyes are blinded by hatred. I also appreciate that Wunderland doesn’t sugarcoat anything: you will most definitely not like all of the characters in the novel.

I’m so glad I read this book, and recommend it to everyone. I haven’t read any of Jennifer Cody Epstein’s other work so I’m going to jump on that in the new year, as her writing really speaks to me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy, and to Jennifer Cody Epstein for writing such a wonderful novel!

"East Village, 1989
Things had never been easy between Ava Fisher and her estranged mother Ilse. Too many questions hovered between them: Who was Ava's father? Where had Ilse been during the war? Why had she left her only child in a German orphanage during the war's final months? But now Ilse's ashes have arrived from Germany, and with them, a trove of unsent letters addressed to someone else unknown to Ava: Renate Bauer, a childhood friend. As her mother's letters unfurl a dark past, Ava spirals deep into the shocking history of a woman she never truly knew.

Berlin, 1933
As the Nazi party tightens its grip on the city, Ilse and Renate find their friendship under siege--and Ilse's increasing involvement in the Hitler Youth movement leaves them on opposing sides of the gathering storm. Then the Nuremberg Laws force Renate to confront a long-buried past, and a catastrophic betrayal is set in motion..."

This book tells the story of two best friends who during the war in Berlin were part of the Hitler Youth movement, also the book tells us about the relationship of one of them with her daughter, and how after her death the secrets of the past are revealed

I love stories about war and I enjoy reading about the historical events that always involve novels like these.

Wunderland is a novel told in two different time frames and two places, New York and Berlin, goes from the past to the present and told from various points of view, with well-defined and very well developed characters. But I admit that it cost me a lot to read this book I think it's the way it's written, it's not a quick read. I found it a bit difficult to follow at times.

The plot of this book is different from most of the novels I have read about WWII. This is not a story of extermination camps and war crimes, it is a story of people and how Hitler's Germany changed their lives forever. About families, friends, loyalty, betrayals.

Although It has not been my favorite book about WWII, I got to know part of the story that I did not know, like the youth movement, I do not love it, but it is a book that for us lovers of historical fiction stories shows us a different side than we are used to, so you can add it to your list.

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. #Wunderland #NetGalley

I wanted to love this book because historical fiction is my jam but I just could not get into the style of writing.
There was a lot of back and forth in a wide range of years and different dialogues that half the time I was just trying to figure out who was talking and what era they were in.
I ended up abandoning this one.

#Wunderland#NetGalley. The title Wunderland is a misnomer.. Wunderland was Hitler’s dream of a perfect Aryan world. Wunderland\Wonderland was also a girl’s fantasy when reading Alice in Wonderland.
This is more of a personal story of two young girls that begins in prewar Germany. They were best friends sharing each other’s thoughts and secrets. Then Renate discovers she has Jewish blood which eventually destroys her relationship with Ilse who is a pure blood German and becomes a member of Hitler’s youth movement.
The story goes back and forth over seversl decades and is quite confusing at times. We learn about Ilse’s daughter Ava and her granddaughter and a surprising conclusion.
You follow events leading up to burning and looting of synagogues and torture of some of the Jewish citizens which became known as Kristallnacht! The reader is emotionally drawn in as we see how the lives of the girls and their families change.
Jennifer Cody Epstein’s historical novel covers the holocaust time period in history as many authos do but her book is so humanized. Keeo those tissues handy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crown publishing for permitting me to preview this book.

This book started out slow for me but it picks up fast. I've read many books recently about WWII and Hitler's Third Reich. This book focused on the youth and how they were trained to treat the Jewish community. Parts are very sad, but I thought it was a well written book. This is my first by this author, but I'll definitely read more by her.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. Thank you,Netgalley.
All opinions are my own.

I really enjoy WWII, historical fiction novels and this was no exception. While this one seems to start out a bit slow or a bit disjointed, hang in there for a good story.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for this advanced readers copy.

It is not very often that we read about Nazi era Germany from a young German adult's perspective. This was an engaging story whereby the protagonist wrestles with her loyalty to the Nazi party, putting it ahead of a long time friendship with a Jewish girl who pre-war was seen as an equal. Lies and betrayals occur, then the ugly story of Nazi era life gets hidden in effort to make crimes bearable.

Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Pub. Date: April 23, 2019

“Wunderland” was a letdown for me. However, my disappointment may be my own fault. The author, Jennifer Cody Epstein, has written for BC, HBO, and The Wall Street Journal, among other prestigious journals. Because of her credentials, maybe I was expecting something unusually good and/or different. Or, possibly because historical fiction is my favorite genre, I may have simply read one too many WWII stories revolving around the Hitler Youth movement, making “Wunderland” blend into other storylines. Still, surprisingly in this novel, I did not feel the empathy and rage that I should have when the persecution of the German Jews began.

This story goes back and forth in time and setting from the East Village in 1989 and Berlin, 1933. In 1933, we meet two preteen and then teenage female best friends. In 1986, we meet the grown daughter of one of the Berlin friends who is estranged from her mother. The daughter has no idea who her father is and her mother almost 40 years later is still mum on the subject. There is some suspense to her parental parentage. Could she be the daughter of a nameless Nazi? Was her mom part of the breeding program when German women were impregnated to produce children of alleged Aryan purity? Unfortunately, the writing is clunky making the reader not invested in the question. I do believe that Cody Epstein does a good job in catching the dynamics of female teenage friendships (competition for a boy’s interest) as well as on mother/daughter relationships (always knowing how to push each other’s buttons). But, lacking in holding my interest long enough to care about the characters.