My parents grew up during WW2, and my dad was stationed in the Philippines. Furthermore, I'm a linguaphile and lived in Japan for a couple of years. So this story had my attention even before I started reading. Although the story is told entirely through letters, it masterfully weaves a breathtaking narrative, sometimes leisurely, sometimes galloping, but always fascinating. Through it all, the main character wrestles with faith, discrimination, stereotypes, and restoring relationships. I greatly enjoyed reading it, reading the letter writers' unique turns of phrases, and watching how relationships evolved throughout the novel. I highly recommend it!

In her debut novel, Amy Lynn Green creates an epistolary masterpiece that places you in the heroine's shoes as she struggles to balance duty and empathy.

There's dry humor. Small town drama. Historical insight. And delicious tidbits such as these: "Real life is dreadfully tedious, the way it interrupts reading."

There's also relational tension between former best friends and roommates. Racial prejudice against Japanese American soldiers and German POWs. And a very personal struggle with selfishness, pride, and bitterness.

Read compassion, love, and patriotism between the lines in this riveting epistolary novel by Amy Lynn Green.

This was a great look at what it was like in the United States during the times of the POW camps of World War II. There were many interpersonal relationships going on and lots of things going on at that time. If you think about it, times have changed and yet they haven't. Sometimes you think we have progressed and then again, not so much. Then of course there was the parts of the story that go along with the title about the things we don't say and do we ever get the chance to say them. Take those opportunities while you can. The only thing that I didn't love about this book was that it was all letters back and forth between different characters.

Things We Didn't Say by Amy Lynn Green

Outspoken, goes her own way, headstrong, Johanna Berglund, is a  linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, in I944, when she is asked to come back to her hometown to act as a translator at a camp for German POWs. When Johanna declines the offer several times, her scholarship is revoked, forcing her to go home and take the job.  Johanna had left her home, with plans to rarely return, due to sad memories and a falling out with her best friends, several years earlier. Now Johanna is a pharah in her hometown, since most citizens are angry to have German POWs there, despite the fact that the POWs are going to help them to plant, raise, and harvest their crops.

It doesn't help things when it becomes known that Johanna corresponds regularly with Japanese American, Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers. Johanna's attempt to make life better for the German POWs and her friendship with Peter convinces the most critical townsfolk to turn on Johanna and believe the worst of her. And Johanna often makes things worse with her abrasive but honest letters to the editor of the newspaper and other residents of the town.

The entire story is told through letters, notes, and documents and we know from the beginning that Johanna has been accused of treason. I enjoyed how the story was told and especially enjoyed the letters between Johanna and Peter. Peter, whose family is in an American concentration camp because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They have done nothing wrong except to be Japanese, yet Peter has such a forgiving, compassionate, and positive outlook on life and he is the best thing that could ever happen to Johanna. She cherishes his friendship, knows he is her best friend, but it isn't until something happens to Peter that she realizes just how much she has always held back her most real, deepest feelings, thinking she would lose something of herself if she gave any more of herself to anyone.

This is such a touching story and the tension builds as we read the letters, notes, and documents. Johanna is both naive and cynical, not realizing how she is being used, not suspecting what is going on right in front of her. The story shows us the heartache of those who have lost family to the war, have loved ones as POWs, and live separated from their homes and their families, with no end in sight.

Thank you to Bethany House/Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley for this ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bethany House Publishers for an ARC of this book! Release date - November 3, 2020

I absolutely adored this little book. It gets compared to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I definitely see the comparison with both the WW2 subject matter and the letter format. I'd highly recommend this book to fans of that book.

The letter format was SO well-done. It constantly held my attention, completely sucked me in and kept me turning pages. It made it easy to read just one more, just one more, and the pages flew by. The way the letters were ordered, where you find out right away there's a court case but then slowly discover who and why kept me anxiously waiting to see how it all played out. The story progressed so naturally. Another thing about the letters that could have been terrible but turned out amazing is that we never see the characters interact face to face. Everything happens off page. Peter's appearance is never even described. But it was SO GOOD and felt SO NATURAL, never forced. It was absolutely perfect and takes real talent to do this right. Such incredible writing.

I came to LOVE these characters. Gah! The characters! They're so fleshed out and real and quirky and I just fell in love with them. And there was so much backstory to build their character, like for instance what happened with Jo and Erik. How that affected her entire personality and the course of her life. And we slowly get all that backstory throughout the book in such a natural way. Every character was like this, with real backstories and motivations. And the love story was especially well done. It was so natural and slow build. Definitely no instalove. I fell in love with the characters as they fell in love with each other and that is my favorite kind of romance.

And then most importantly there is the actual storyline. I loved the German POW angle, plus translation/censoring letters. It was so fascinating. I feel like authors are getting more creating with their WW2 books, diving into these lesser known aspects of the war. So much was happening, not just fighting and Nazis and the Holocaust, all of which I do love to read about, but these German prisoners in a small American town. PLUS the Japanese American angle. I've definitely never read a book from that perspective. Peter was definitely a favorite character and it's crazy the amount of prejudice he experienced for no reason. He was born in America but because Japan was America's enemy, Americans felt like he was the enemy, even though he's serving in the American army. Paired with the German POW angle this was so so fascinating. Prejudice is real. But people are people no matter where they come from and what their nationality is and this book explored that so well.

Towards the end I just could not put this book down. The ending was SO good and I'm mostly satisfied but I loved these characters so much that I'd definitely read a sequel. I'm so happy I gave this book a chance and I'd love to read more from Amy Lynn Green. Solid 4.5 stars!!!

Things We Didn't Say is Amy Lynn Green's debut novel and I expect it to be the first of many. I was intrigued by this story line because it seemed to be a well kept secret that there were as many German P.O.W. camps in our country during World War II. At least, it was certainly never mentioned in any history books I had, and that was one subject I didn't slack off on my homework. The first time I heard of these camps, I was an adult and heard someone tell of a relative whose father had spent time in a camp within my own state. So, years later, I found myself intrigued by Amy's book I found myself not only enjoying the story but doing a little research, only to find there were many camps within our country.

Amy did a wonderful job on her research and her characters are well developed. Johanna, and Peter's correspondence make up a lot of the story and it was intriguing to see the story from each viewpoint. Johanna, a linguist specialist, strives to do the best she can at a job she clearly didn't want in the beginning of the book. As time goes, she gets more and more involved in the lives of the prisoners as she translates their own correspondence from their families and does her best to improve their lot within the confines of the camp. Stefan Werner, who seems to represent his fellow prisoners, seems to have a pulse on everything that goes on inside. Johanna, for her part, seems to become more distant to her community, the more involved she becomes in her work.

Peter, Johanna's close friend, is my favorite character. He is a young, Japanese American, whose family was cruelly placed in an internment camp at the start of the war. His desire to fight for his country is hampered by his being recruited to a Japanese language school. His letters have a calming effect on Johanna and the true meaning of his friendship is mired in her desires to go study in Oxford, long her goal but now sidelined by this war and her job. She is brilliant, but, as with many who are brilliant, there are some things she just didn't see. This book is compelling, and gives you a ringside seat into a very real piece of our country's history.

This book offers an interesting look into a side of WWII that many do not talk about. Told through letters and newspaper articles, this novel explores what happened in the United States rather than highlighting the action in Europe. The main character, Johanna, is recruited to work as a translator in a German POW camp located a small Minnesota town. The prisoners have been brought there to help with harvesting in town, although many in town aren't happy about the presence of the enemy so close to home. Johanna, meanwhile, corresponds with Peter, a Japanese American who serves an a teacher to prepare students to head overseas and help with translating in Japan. As their stories progress and Johanna and the town start to see the Germans as people rather the enemy, questions of treason begin to circulate around Johanna and Peter.
This novel felt like a fresh take on WWII as I'd never known there were German POW camps in the United States. The story lagged a bit in the middle, but was overall a great story filled with captivating characters. It is Christian fiction, but the message of forgiveness and treating others with kindness is handled naturally without being preachy. This is a wonderful addition to a the WWII historical fiction genre.

DNF 21% into the book.
It was just meh, boring and i didn`t really like the book sadly. The characters and story was very bland and i kind of fell out of it.

I will admit that as intriguing as the premise was for this story, I was a bit skeptical about how much I might like it because of the format it was written in. I’ve struggled with other epistolary pieces (written in the form of letters) in the past. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised that it was much easier for me this time around. I liked that the from and to were both clearly identified along with some context before each letter and it helped make it easier to know whose head I was in and where they were. There was still a layer of depth missing from the narrative for me that isn’t possible through letters, however at the same point I understand and see why this story had to be told the way it was. The story was able to hold my attention and I wanted to know how things ultimately ended up for Johanna and what led to her circumstances that are revealed in the beginning. Although there were also some parts that dragged (again mostly likely due to the format), overall it was a good story and I’m glad I picked it up to read.

*I received a copy of this book through NetGalley. Thoughts and opinions expressed are mine alone.

Amy Lynn Green has done a fantastic job with her first novel! In a series of letters, the story is brought to us, and helps us to see behind the lines in an event that changed the world and blurred a lot of lines while solidifying others. I’m excited to see what books lay ahead from this exciting new author!

Things we didn't say


Johanna Berglund was enjoying her classes in linguistics when she was interrupted by a request to be a translator at a POW camp in her home town in Michigan.
If she did not volunteer to fill her position at the camp she would lose her scholarship so she could not finish college.
She goes back to her hometown, signs up for the position and gets to work.
It is 1944, and one of her friends in a Japanese-American named Terry Tanabe who is training young men from Hawaii and the mainland to serve as translators in the military.
You can imagine the trouble Johanna gets into translating letters for the German POW's and having a Japanese American pen pal and friend!

Told entirely by letters and articles, this story is absolutely fascinating. It takes place in 1944 in a small Midwestern town that became the location of a POW camp for German soldiers. The camp needs a translator and Jo is pressured to leave her college studies to accept this position. She is to censure incoming and outgoing mail, as well. Things We Didn't Say is about what happens during her time working at the camp and about the result of what happens to her as well. The content covers a variety of topics including prejudice, the complexity of personal relationships and small town dynamics.
Populated with memorable characters and dialogue that is often witty and always profound, this book is well worth reading.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. . The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I’ve just become an Amy Green fan. Have you ever watched someone finger weave? Or knit? Or stitch together an intricately-designed quilt? I can’t do any of those things, and I’m enthralled by watching those who can. But I do write, and I’ve been studying WWII POW camps on the home front, and maybe that’s why I am so in awe of Amy Green’s first novel (according to the author’s note). Using a very atypical story format, she has written what seems like a giant quilt pattern of relationships and story layers and laid each piece perfectly into place, seaming together a powerful story rich with history, intrigue, and emotion. And like a finger-weaver, she kept hold of numerous threads at once and managed to snug each one tightly into place. She also resisted the urge to give away too much too soon, and I found myself trying to read between the lines of “things we didn’t say” to ferret out hints. All this combined it gave me a powerful reading experience. The story itself, written through letters by various characters, all pointing to a charge of treason against the sharp-edged yet endearing protagonist, is a format that had to have been extremely challenging to write, especially since much of the correspondence overlaps in time and through distance during the second World War. I applaud her skill, and most of all, her attention to historic detail. This definitely makes my top reads list of 2020. I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

Things We Didn't Say by Amy Lynn Green In this well researched and thought-provoking story in which little known particulars of of war-time American life are brought to light. The story features both he history of the German POW camps that were scattered across the United States and of the Japanese-American translators serving with army units in the Pacific theater while their families were incarcerated in Japanese internment camps. The narrative presented through letters, newspaper articles and court records make for a different approach to a historical novel. Joanna is a unique and special character as is Peter. All of the characters are well developed and reliable. Very interesting and entertaining read.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

When I first started reading, Things We Didn't Say, I was surprised to find that it was a novel full of letters and documents. I found that refreshing in a book. I loved that an entire story could be told entirely through correspondence and newspaper clippings. Despite a different-than-usual approach to writing a novel, it kept my interest and was able to surprise me as to how it would be toward the end of the book. Things We Didn't Say introduced me to a part of WWII history that I was unfamiliar with--POWs in America from European countries. I appreciated the Author's Note at the end of the book that spoke of the inspiration for the book and gave historical context to it's setting. I recommend Things We Didn't Say to anyone who likes books set in WWII and anyone that's looking for something that's different than your typical historical fiction novel. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book! (This review is also on GoodReads.)

It's hard to believe this is Ms. Green's debut novel. Wow. It's plain to see that she put a lot of thought and research into this book. I had no idea that there were German POW camps in the US during WW II. It did take me a bit to get used to reading the epistolary style of this book, but I enjoyed it. It made me think about when I was younger and had pen pals. I actually miss the act of writing letters instead of texting.

Johanna was so strong, smart and witty. I loved watching her grow in her faith and I especially loved Peter. He was kind and encouraging and such a good friend to Johanna. I highly recommend this book.

Dear Amy,

All is well here in Maryland. Missing Minnesota as most of my social media posts might allude to. I was so glad to be home for the first snowfall of the year though. It'll carry me through until I can get back in January. I have to admit, I'm glad that the weather stays in the 70s here in Maryland during November. I get to wear shorts and t-shirts here longer than I ever did in MN.

I have to tell you, I just finished "Things We Didn't Say" and was blown away! Are you sure this was your first novel? it certainly didn't feel like it. Have I ever mentioned I've never read an epistolary novel before. I have watched the movie "The Potato Peel Society of Guernsey" but I haven't read a book created by all letters!

Having not read a book that was based on written letters, I wasn't sure if it would appeal to me or if it would keep my interest. Well, I was hooked the moment I started reading! I was so nervous for Joanna Berglund right from the get-go. Can I tell you that I had no idea we had POW camps in Minnesota?! I didn't grow up there so maybe my kids learned about it since they did.

I really enjoyed the getting a feel for the relationship Jo has with the people in her life through her letters. Of course, being the romantic that I am, I enjoyed Peter's letter exchanges the most. Interesting that I say that now because I think in the 40s I probably wouldn't have had the same response.1

Jo going back to Ironside Lake when her dreams lay far away at Oxford really made me feel compelled to be angry for her... basically being coerced into going home. I would imagine tensions were high, especially in such a small town. We know how those small towns are and Ironside Lake definitely lived up to the reputation.

I love Jo's spirited exchanges with Peter and Olive. She's witty and abrupt, something I ADORE in characters. Not everyone appreciates those parts that make up Joanna. Good thing she's resolved not to care in the least. HA!

The work she did with the POWs was wonderful and kudos for people who do that in real life as well. I'm sure she represents a unique group of people. It was "easy" to see them through her eyes. Too bad others didn't follow suit.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot I can say to the rest of the story because I don't want to give too much away. Hopefully I haven't already. If so, please be sure to let me know so I can make amends! I hope this isn't the last we hear from you and that we'll have many books to look forward to! I'll be reading them to be sure.

PS The anonymous donor really surprised me!
1It's always hard to know how one would respond in a different time. I've often thought of this when I read books that are set during the Civil War or Regency era.

This book started out slowly. There were multiple times when I almost quit reading. I find stories told through series of letters to be very confusing and boring in general. I’m so glad that I didn’t give up on this one. When things finally started happening the story came alive for me. This turned out to be an amazing read. If, like me, you are finding the beginning to be dreadfully slow, I encourage you to continue reading. You’re going to be glad that you did.

When the first few chapters of Things We Didn't Say consisted of letters and newspaper clippings, I flipped through the book and discovered that the entire book was structured that way. Initially I felt that would cause the book to drag on, but I could not have been more wrong. I was totally sucked into this story, and totally amazed at how the author's unique story structure allowed the tale to unfold. Johanna Berglund,at first a fairly unlikable but brilliant linguistics student, evolves into a caring, compassionate young woman as she is forced into working as a translator and censor in a German POW camp in her hometown of Ironside Lake, Minnesota. There is so much more I want to reveal, but truly want to avoid even the smallest of spoilers that would cause other readers not to get the benefit of the author's true gift of feeding the reader information at just the right spot in the story. This is truly a five star read, and I am more than grateful to have received a complimentary copy from Bethany House via NetGalley without obligation. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Johanna Berglund is a genius at languages. She is determined to get her degree and move to Oxford, England to pursue her passion and for discovering Europe. It is also a desire to never return to her hometown and the pain found there. It is during WWII that things begin to fall apart for these plans. The US Army is looking for a linguist to help with a new POW camp located outside her hometown. Despite her protests, she relocates for 9 months and her life changes forever. Her sarcastic personality shines in her letters and in the dialogue. She is clever and single-minded in her goals. Until everything changes during her time helping at the camp. She is accused of colluding with the enemy and has the possibility of being sent to jail for treason. Soon she doesn't know who to trust, including herself.

The newspaper articles are funny, the letter exchanges are clever, the book is overall a fun read and clean, which is always appreciated.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.