I had a really hard time connecting with this story. I feel like it could have just been my mood. I skimmed a lot of passages but this one is a book I’d like to give another go when I’m in the mood for it.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC of Beyond the Blue Border in exchange for an honest review

Maybe because it's a translation I couldn't get really connected to the story, the characters and the story is compelling but I often felt like I couldn't get a full grasp of what was happening and that made the reading difficult.

2.5/5.0

I received this book as an eARC from Netgalley. All opinions are my own!

Hanna and Andreas just want out of oppressive East Germany and the life that it's barely offering them. But there's only one way out - across the Baltic Sea.

I essentially devoured this book every single time I picked it up! Even though it goes back and forth from different timelines, I felt like the story was very cohesive and I was almost equally invested in both times of Hanna and Andreas' lives. Both of them were amazingly relatable and I loved getting to know them and their stories. I was rooting for them from the moment they first hopped into the Baltic. I had been worried that a book with younger characters might be harder to connect to, but that was certainly not the case with Hanna and Andreas!

It was so interesting to see what life in East Germany might have been like for children and how it really developed them and made them into who they were - and really tamped down on their hopes and dreams. I loved this kind of insight into history and a different perspective on that time period for the world.

If you like historical fiction, this is the action-packed, thought-provoking book for you!

This book wasn’t what I expected. The premise intrigued me enough to request an early digital copy, but as I began, I didn’t feel like it was what the premise promised. It was hard to keep track of when things were happening and I wish each section had some kind of date/location heading to help me know when and where the events take place in conjunction with the main event of the characters swimming across the Baltic Sea. While reading, I wasn’t sure whether this book is set in the 1970s or 80s. Some of the “historical” references make me think 80s, but even then I wasn’t sure without doing my own search.

At first, the flipping back and forth between the escape across the Baltic and the past events that led up to Hanna and Andreas planning their escape was jolting. I just wanted to know if they would cross, if they would make it, what was going to happen. I didn’t care about random events from their school or home lives. By the end, though, I was a little more appreciative of those “flashback” sections as those scenes really showed the hardship of life in East Germany during this time. I haven’t read a ton of historical books set during this time and place in history since it’s still relatively current, so those details were interesting to me.

The ending however didn’t work for me. These types of stories can go two ways and sometimes endings that are a little bittersweet or even sad can work for a story. But I just felt like it ended on such a disappointing note that the whole story felt a little pointless. I wanted an epilogue or something to maybe wrap everything up as well.

2.5 stars

The novel tells the story of two teenagers who are expelled from school for their activist work in which they directly challenged the socialist state of East Germany and instead of doing factory work, they decide to escape to the democratic west by swimming across the Baltic Sea for 25 hours.

There's humour (humour relating to the drama of their country), there's friendship. It's sweet, it's wholesome and it does address the issues German citizens face (sort of?).

Since this book is a translation, I can't really judge it but the narration and writing made it REALLY hard for me to get into this book. I tried my best to like this book but I just couldn't. This has the potential to be so much more but it fell far too short. However, all criticism aside, I really liked the ending.

I absolutely adored this book!! I loved the amount of detail in it, the author did an amazing job with character connection.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Beyond the Blue Border in exchange for an honest review.

I want to start off by saying that I'm fairly sure this is a translation so there's a very good chance virtually all of my issues here don't pertain to this book in its original form. Beyond the Blue Border had the potential to be really, really compelling and I did find myself eager and anxious to find out how things turn out for our two main characters, but it was more in a "I want to get through this story so I can read the conclusion" sense than a "I'm really enjoying this story and can't wait to see how it develops". The narration style made it really, really hard to grip onto anything plot wise. I did really enjoy the ending and I think the slightly disjointed and disorienting narration style really helped bolster that despite all my issues with it in the earlier sections of the book.