The writing was good, but I believe I wasn’t in the mood for a love story as I could not connect with the main characters in a way that made me root for them. I typically love historical fiction, but don’t usually choose romance as a genre in general. That would be my mistake and not the author’s. I’m sure if you like love stories and star crossed lovers, you will likely enjoy this book.

This was a well written and the story was gripping! I am so glad the author ended the story the way she did...I would recommend!

Daughter of the Reich takes a popular historical fiction genre and brings a new perspective to it looking at World War II through the eyes of Hetty Heinrich, the young daughter of a high-ranking Nazi officer. Fein introduces us to characters at the beginning of the book, both Jew and German alike, that play an integral part of Hetty's life, relationships that will create great tension as the war progresses and her father calls upon her to be loyal to the cause. I appreciated the way Fein captivated my emotions through the details of her characters as they fight for survival and freedom.

Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein takes place pre WWll in Germany. I always feel bad when I can not give 4 or 5 stars to a Holocaust book. Daughter of the Reich is about a 16 year old German girl, Hetty, who falls in love with Walter, a Jewish boy. They live during a time when their relationship is forbidden due to Hitler’s need to achieve racial purity. Hetty struggles with her German upbringing and is constantly battling her thoughts, hearing Hitler talk to her telling her what is needed to be a good German. Her father is a high ranking Nazi officer whose goal is to deal with the Jewish question, exterminating all Jews. Daughter of the Reich is more about an impossible love story in a time where it is forbidden for Germans and Jews to be together, rather than a story about the actual war. It touches on the Kindersport and Lebensborn project.

For some reason, I’m not sure why, I did not connect with the characters. They did not seem to develop and I did not become emotionally attached to them. My favorite character was Hetty’s friend Erna, she was truly a kind, loving, devoted friend who came from a wonderful family. We all need a friend like Erna. My least favorite character was Tomas, he was strange and I found his relationship with Hetty totally unbelievable to the point of almost being comical. All that being said I did get teary eyed at the end.

If you are looking for a love story I would recommend this book but if you are looking for an exceptional Holocaust read like The Nightingale or All the Light We Cannot See I would not recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hetty is a young German woman caught up in the furor of the early days of the Nazi party. This book is chilling. I was holding my breath through most of it because it was scary. Heart wrenching book and very well written.

Set in Germany during the 1930’s as the Nazis solidified their power, this is an unforgettable, powerful, and heartbreaking coming of age story.

Hetty Heinrich is the young daughter of a high ranking SS officer. Since childhood, she has been fed Nazi propaganda and believes what she has been taught. However, Hetty is also in love with a former friend of her brother, a young man who is Jewish. As the atmosphere in Germany slowly begins to change and become more restrictive and anti-semetic, Hetty starts to doubt the things she has been taught. Feelings of fear and suspicion are palpable. As tension builds, Hetty is faced with choices that will change her life forever.

This is a beautifully written novel about loyalty, friendship, courage, and survival. It is also a story about love which transcends even the darkest of times. It will bring you to tears. The epilogue is especially poignant. The characters are clearly believable, and the sense of place is vivid. Ms. Fein’s meticulous research sheds light on this period of time in German history. I could not put this book down, and it’s one I won’t soon forget.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, and author Louise Fein for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this outstanding and unforgettable novel of historical fiction!

DAUGHTERhttps://www.bookbub.com/reviews/4255000315 OF THE REICH by Louise Fein is a gut-wrenching and heart-breaking novel. I finished it with tears running down my face.
Set in Germany before World War II, it follows the Hetty Heinrich, the daughter of an up and coming SS officer who has fully embraced Hitler’s ideology. Hetty idolizes her father and is caught up in the excitement of the future as proposed by the very dynamic Hitler, despite being told that a woman becoming a doctor is not in the cards. The indoctrination starts young and is hard to read. Hetty also doesn’t understand how her brother could forget his best friend, Walter, and is shocked when she finds out he is one of the “evil” Jewish people she has heard so much about, especially since he is blond and blue-eyed and he saved her life.
When she and Walter meet again, by chance, she struggles with what she has been taught all these years and what Walter presents to her as his reality. How can she believe him? Then, again, he is still the same person she has always loved and he is always honest with her, even when it comes to how her family ended up in their big beautiful house, so different than the small dingy apartment they started in. As a child, she had no reason to question how she got there, but as she got older, with Walter, the inconsistencies made her question everything she thought she knew. As their relationship grew, we see Hetty’s struggle with what she is told to believe and what she believes to be right forcing her to make heart-breaking decisions about her relationships with Walter, her friends, and her family.
This was well-written and I found myself immersed in the descriptions and horrors of all that happened during that time period. This novel makes it easy to see how things progressed in Germany. The characters were well-developed and pulled a wide array of emotions from me. This is one that was an unexpectedly “unputdownable” for me.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
#DaughteroftheReich #BookClubGirlEarlyRead #BookClubGirl #WilliamMorrow

I am thankful for the opportunity to read and review an early edition of Daughter of the Reich. Following is my review as posted on Goodreads:

WW2 era historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. However, if I’m honest, I’ve been reading so many books in this genre lately that when I started this book, my initial thought was that this book would be just like all the others. I’m so glad I was wrong.

I loved that this novel took place prior to the war. It gave a unique perspective of the indoctrination of children’s minds after the establishment of the Reich. It was interesting to read about the beginnings of the concentration camps when people were still unsure of what they would be like and had no idea of the horrible role they would come to play as the war progressed. It was amazing to read about characters who began to treat Hitler as a god and how he used his propaganda to spoil and poison a nation’s mind. It was even more awesome to get an early look into the beginning of the resistance networks that sprang up around Germany.

I only withheld my fifth star because I wanted more in the ending. I felt like the entire book was leading up to the final moments and then it came to a screeching halt and jumped ahead 57 years. Overall though, I’d highly recommend this book to my fellow WW2 genre fans!

Daughter of the Reich • Louise Fein
⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)
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“I wonder how many other clandestine secrets we each hold inside...keeping us from the honest purity every good German girl should strive for.”
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👍🏼Thumbs Up:
Very interesting and unique story concept. I enjoyed reading about the nazi perspective and how they brainwashed their communities to get a more holistic view of what happened in the 1930s and 40s.
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👎🏻Thumbs Down:
The narrative felt very cliched a lot of the time. It may be because I read SO much HF, but this one wasn’t as well written as others. There was also a very sudden idealogical shift, I would have enjoyed seeing a more nuance change in the main character.
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🤓For readers WHO:
-Enjoy Historical Fiction/Historical Romance
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👉🏼This is what’s WHAT:
Hetty is raised to be the perfect daughter of the reich. She believes in everything she learns about the fuhrer, and as a daughter of a high ranking SS officer, she knows her duty to Germany. When a boy from her past returns as tensions rise, she will be forced to choose between duty and love.
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⏳WHEN I read this book:
As sickening as it was to read, it provided a lot of context to the Nazi ideology and how so many people went along with it at the time.
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🚨WHERE you should watch out:
-Racism of the Nazi Party
-Some cursing
-One closed door sex scene, sexual references
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📍WHY you should read this one:
Would make a great companion novel for another HF/middle grade WW2 novel.
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📚HOW I read it:
eARC from netgalley

Growing up in a Nazi household with a father holding a high rank in the SS, Hetty Heinrich learns the importance of patriotism even as she sees prejudice and discrimination all around her. A dutiful citizen and daughter, Hetty dreams of fulfilling her role in the success of the new German state under Hitler.

Her beliefs are challenged, however, when, as a teenager, she becomes reacquainted with Walter Keller, a childhood friend whose Jewish family has lost everything under the country’s anti-Semitic laws. Despite the danger, Hetty and Walter embark on a love affair that becomes more and more difficult as persecution against Jews and their allies increases.

Anyone—from a friend to classmate to house staff—could be a potential informant—and discovery could lead to jail or concentration camps for them both. As their love blossoms, the noose of suspicion tightens, and they must decide how much to sacrifice to keep their secret hidden and each other safe from authorities.

Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein book had a slow start for me, and at times I was frustrated with Hetty. Though she was characterized as intelligent, she had little intuition about people’s motives or intentions, and her vacillation between positions, while understandable, did not always make for good reading. At times, I also found her overly sentimental and often misguided.

I did think it was interesting to see the expectations placed on Nazi children, especially girls, and observe how Hetty changed over time. Fein had a challenge which she successfully met in making Hetty, an Aryan youth enthralled with Hitler, become a sympathetic character. Some of the secondary characters too were very fascinating, if not likable. Towards the end of the book, the plot really picked up, though things might have moved too quickly at the end with several loose ends packed into the epilogue.

Historical fiction fans, particularly those who enjoy romance, will want to read this book.

I originally read this book under the title of “People Like Us.” First, I love the cover of this book. I just finished People Like Us by Louise Fein. This book is going to haunt me for a long time. I read a lot of WWII era historical fiction. I felt the author did a lot of research, and I like that this story is being told from a German perspective in pre-war years from 1929-August, 1939.

The beginning catches the reader right away. Hetty a very young girl is drowning in a lake and is saved by her older brother Karl’s Jewish friend Walter. The story then skips a few years. Getty’s family circumstances have changed. Her father a low level worker for a newspaper has taken over the paper and moved into his Jewish predecessor’s house. Hetty and her family become indoctrinated in Nazi ways. Her father is a high ranking SS leader, her brother joins the Luftwaffe, her mother works with an orphanage and supports her husband, and Hetty is involved in a youth group. Walter, of course, is no longer a friend of the family.

In a chance meeting, Walter and Hetty start a relationship. Over time their love develops and we see Hetty questions the beliefs she has learned at home. Having the story told by Hetty allowed me to feel everything Hetty was feeling. I was on an emotional roller coaster. I felt so many emotions. Please be prepared for an emotional ending. It tore me up but it is also a satisfying ending. Thank you Harper Collins and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Daughter of the Reich is a historical fiction novel set in Germany during World War II. The story is told my Hetty Heinrich, the daughter of a high-ranking SS officer. Interestingly this is the second book I have read in a month told from the German perspective which is unusual for fiction about this time period.

The book begins with Hetty almost drowning and being rescued by her brother's friend Walter. From the moment I read this chapter I knew that Hetty and Walter would play an important role at the center of the narrative.

Louise Fein develops her characters beautifully. We read as Hetty grows up in this story. When Walter returns to her life it is inevitable that she will fall in love with him. Not only does their love empower Hetty, it makes her grow and stretch and question all that she has ever been told to believe.

I will warn that the plot development is slow but picks up the pace about half way through. I think that this is deliberate by the author who is pacing the story with Hetty's revelations about life. I think it is very well done and possibly strategic.

I would highly recommend Daughter of the Reich.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Publishers for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A book that makes you feel things fully and deeply is a treasure. This book is a treasure. I found myself feeling anger, heartbreak, fear, and joy while reading this novel. I was transported to another time and placed in a young woman's shoes. My heart hurts for her and yet the most important message of this book is hope.

What happens when the daughter of a high ranking Nazi officer falls in love with a Jewish man? This is the love story that takes you through the timeless affair and deposits you on the other end; leaving you merciless to your feelings as everything harrowingly comes together. Based on true family history, I was captivated by Hetty and her struggle to understand her life growing up under Nazi propaganda.

The synopsis perfectly lays out the plot of the story but what it doesn't portray is the feeling this novel will evoke. I felt the anger, disgust and helplessness as the reality of the Nazi's anti-Semitism campaign is revealed to Hetty. The despair and fear as her own life takes on a new course that requires action and bravery.

Expect tears, expect shock, expect this novel to show you the other side of the coin when it comes to growing up in a Nazi household during this time in history.

Reader warning: racism, attempted rape, brutal scenes and adultery.

Thank you to The Book Club Girls and William Morrow for the opportunity to read this novel and provide an honest and unbiased opinion.

Hetty Heinrich is a young girl when the Nazi party rises to power in1930s Germany. As her father ascends through the ranks of the SS Hetty and her family seem primed to play an important role in the reformation of Leipzig. Propaganda sweeps the nation and Hetty, caught up in the grandeur of the new führer Adolf Hitler’s plans, is eager to play her part in restoring Germany to it former glory. Her dedication wavers only when she crosses paths with Walter, an old family friend. Walter use to be friends with Hetty’s older brother Karl and in fact saved her from drowning when she was seven, but it has been several years since Karl broke off their friendship due to Walter’s Jewish heritage. As Hetty and Walter become reacquainted, a girlhood crush blooms into a love that causes Hetty to reflect on the Nazi teachings and question her own complicity in the Nazi’s rise to power in their city. As friends and family members begin to spy on one another and Germany becomes increasingly hostile towards Jewish people and those who sympathize with them, Hetty will have to decide where her true loyalties lie.

I was thoroughly intrigued by this novel, which I think shares an important story of a young girl growing into womanhood during the Nazi’s rise to power. Hetty is not always a likeable character but I think that is part of what makes her journey so much more captivating. While she holds some deeply controversially views in the beginning, her relationship with Walter personalizes the propaganda in a way that makes her reevaluate and assess her beliefs. I was really moved by the epilogue and feel like there could be another whole story told.

Daughter of the Reich begins in the summer of 1929 in Liepzig, Germany. Seven-year-old Hetty Heinrich nearly drowns, but she is saved by Walter, a Jewish friend of her brother, Karl. As Hetty and Karl grow up and Hitler and the Nazis rise to power, they are no longer permitted to associate with their Jewish friends, as their father is a high-ranking Nazi officer. Hetty believes the Nazi propaganda of Jews as an inferior race, but, when she and Walter meet again as teenagers, they become closer, and Hetty’s views begin to change, leading them towards a secret unsustainable relationship.

Louise Fein’s debut novel is powerful and compelling. Even though the reader knows that the love story between Walter and Hetty will likely end in tragedy, given the fact that cross-racial relationships in 1930s Germany are considered a crime punishable by imprisonment or worse, that didn’t stop me from desperately hoping that it would somehow work out for them. Daughter of the Reich is an emotional roller-coaster, but one you will be glad that you took the time to ride, because the story will remind you of the power of love, even when it’s outside the bounds of what is sometimes considered socially acceptable.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins books for my advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I received this book from
Netgalley for an honest review. I really enjoyed it, it was emotional and well written. Thank you for the ARC.

I love a good World War II novel, so I was so excited to read this one. I was not disappointed. Hetty Heinrich is the daughter of a high ranking Nazi official, and she wholeheartedly believes in Hitler's messages of racial purity. Until she runs into Walter, an old friend of her brother's who also happens to be Jewish. Hetty and Walter begin to meet in secret, and as they fall in love, Hetty begins to question the Nazi ideology.

I was really transported to Nazi Germany in this story. I loved getting inside Hetty's head, and experiencing her change of beliefs. It wasn't an easy read by any means, but I'd put it up with stories like The Nightengale and Things We Cannot Say in terms of being a powerful WWII novel. If you love historical fiction of this era, you should read this book!

I was finally able to download this book and I am sure glad I was! Hands down 5 stars!!! This is the story of Herta (Hetty) Henreich, daughter of an SS officer who runs the town newspaper. Hetty and her family move into a nice large house who Hetty hears belonged to a Jewish family who Hetty hears were run out by the Nazis. Hetty wants to become a doctor and travel, but her parents want her to marry and have make perfect German children to help Hitlers vision for a perfect society. Hetty questions her father's ideals. When she falls in love with Walter, her Jewish friend, and becomes pregnant with his child, and sees what is done to fellow Jews, her life is put to the test. I love how this book created the feeling of the time and made me want more.

This was a difficult read for me. I really forced myself to persevere through the beginning of of the story. As Hitler rises and people embrace him, the rhetoric, the inhumanity, and the scary parallels to today were disturbing. Yet, I am glad I remained with the book. After the tough beginning, I couldn’t put it down and, by the end, loved it.