I know the cover says Libba Bray wrote this, but it doesn't feel like she did. Don't get me wrong, it's very well written and a lesser skilled author couldn't pull off three timelines as well as Bray does, but it's missing all the hallmarks you expect from a Libba Bray book. Fans of her previous work will notice the lack of her wacky humor (Going Bovine, Beauty Queens) or smartly magical characters (The Diviners series) but the social commentary is front and center.

This book is a call to arms when I needed a place to retreat from the world. She's showing us just how important it is and has been to stand up to Fascism at a time when my country seems to be heading that very direction. This would have been a five star book in my heart had I been in a different mental space when I read it.

YA book suitable for YA to adults.

This was such a perfect blend of historical fiction, mystery, and contemporary fiction and just some of the best writing I've ever been lucky enough to read. The writing, the prose. The way she was able to successfully do the pacing, even with three timelines? I will be reading more Libba Bray ASAP

This book was so good! I just can't stop talking about it to friends and family. The story was haunting, engaging, and romantic. I really loved all three POVs, with the World War II part being my favorite, even though it was so difficult to read. I would highly recommend this story!

This was pretty much destined to be heartbreaking.

Bray effortlessly weaves together three stories from three time periods that were fraught with tension and violence. They each relate to each other and show how history is doomed to repeat itself. But ultimately it shows that hope is important and precious and that we must resist.

It was hard to read in 2025. But necessary.

This review makes me so incredibly sad to write. Unfortunately, I do not think that YA historical fiction is something I enjoy anymore. This felt a bit overwritten to me, and make it hard for me to want to pick it up. I think this is definitely a me problem and not a problem with the book. I would still reckoned this to readers who like emotional ya historical fiction.

Legend has it that letters to the Bridegroom’s Oak bring true love—but the tree holds deeper secrets.

In 1940s Germany, Sophie eagerly awaits a reply from a mysterious suitor, while her best friend Hanna’s letters serve a different purpose: resisting the Nazis in their town of Kleinwald.

In 1980s West Germany, American teen Jenny finds freedom in rebellious Lena and an elderly woman with hidden ties to history.

In 2020 New York, lockdown-bound best friends Miles and Chloe uncover a decades-old mystery—two missing teens linked to the Bridegroom’s Oak.

This book took some time to get into. I really enjoyed the three different POV, especially the 2020s, where the author depicts exactly what was happening during COVID time. The 1930's POV made me super uncomfortable, which means that the author nailed the tone perfectly. The 80s one was spot on with the punk scene. While this was what I would consider a historical fiction-mystery, it was also about the power of love and friendship and the lengths that people go to, to sacrifice for the greater good.

Must Read YA Novel!

This should be a purchase for any library that serves a young adult population.

I loved this novel - it is the perfect antidote to our current news cycle. Important lessons about morality, tolerance, media literacy, resistance, and civil disobedience in any era.

I think this is one of those young adult novels that has wider appeal for an older audience as well because of its vivid history and humanities lessons.

Covering World War II Germany, a divided Berlin of the 80s and Covid Spring, this novel seamlessly wove the stories of the teenage protagonists in each era, showed how we are all connected, must strive to find the truth and do the right thing. Love is resistance.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ all the stars I can give

QOTD: What is one important lesson you have learned from world history?

I’ve learned that critical thinking and media literacy are very important when we are considering media and government messages.

Thank you @libbabray, @fsgbooks @netgalley @fiercereads for the opportunity to read this amazing novel that is also the @gmabookclub YA selection for February. I will be putting this in every reader’s hands at my library.

#underthesamestars #bestbooksof2025 #youngadultbooks #historicalfictionbooks #newbooks #currentlyreading #bookstagram #bestbooks

In New York City, during the pandemic, Miles and Chloe stay connected through late-night phone calls and Zoom calls. During one call Chloe shares a package she received from her grandmother that has them searching for answers.

In 1980 Jenny arrives with her family to live in West Berlin. When she meets punker Lena, her world changes. She also encounters an old lady who shares fairy tales that hide secrets.

It all starts back in 1939 Kleinwald, Germany, and two close friends Sophie and Hanna who are the 'good' girls and part of the Nazi youth movement. Sophie is a dreamer and storyteller who loves the romance of the Bridegroom's Oak. People write letters and hide them in the tree, hoping to find romance. But WWII is close at hand and the dreams of a happily ever after are shattered with Hitler's advance. The forest that once was a sanctuary from the horrors of war is no longer safe.

What worked: Once again Bray has delivered a winning tale! She has a real talent for drawing you into her story with multi-developed characters and rich worlds. I devoured this novel that had two best friends in 2020 searching for unanswered questions that lead back to WWII Germany and a tree that promises if you write and leave a letter there, your true love will answer back.

I love how effectively the stories are all connected. Sophie and Hanna are more like sisters. Hanna is the perfect Aryan model with her athleticism, fair skin, blonde hair, and commitment to the Hitler Youth movement. Sophie though is more quiet and a romantic at heart. She loves stories and her father owns a bookstore in their little town. Their relationship becomes more complex when Hanna returns from volunteer work in Poland. She has her own secrets. The brutality of Hitler's regime is shown by the 'hunter' who comes to their small village.

Woven throughout is a fairy tale of the hare and the deer. There's symbolism tied to the mystery that Miles and Chloe try to solve. I love this extra layer because it shows readers the magic that Sophie loves with fairy tales. Only in this case, the story is her own.

Jenny feels suffocated by her overbearing parents. A chance encounter with Lena opens her eyes to the Punk lifestyle and the danger that comes with it. Jenny peels back the girl her parents expect and embraces who she really is. Jenny and Lena's relationship is tumultuous. One moment it's exciting and another scary. Bray does a great job showing the divided Germany before the Berlin Wall came down and the danger it held.

Great pacing and engaging characters set in different time periods. All face difficult and at times dangerous challenges but each has their own sprinkle of hope.

This book was beautifully done. It was both hopeful and devastating, a story that lingers long after the final page. Libba Bray masterfully weaves together three timelines, showing how history repeats itself in cycles that seem impossible to break—yet young people continue to stand up, speak out, and fight for change despite the risks.

I was completely captivated, unable to put the book down until I unraveled how the three stories connected. From WWII resistance efforts to the Berlin Wall protests of the 1980s to a modern-day mystery, each thread felt urgent and deeply emotional. The novel forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the past and present while never losing sight of hope.

This is absolutely a book club pick for me. There’s so much to discuss—acts of resistance, historical echoes, love in all its forms, and what it truly means to make a difference. If you love historical fiction that makes you think and feel, this is one you won’t want to miss.

If I'm being completely honest, I think I knew a bit too much about World War II/Nazi Germany to absolutely love this book. While it is beyond important to learn about world history (because history repeats itself...) I feel like this isn't the way to learn about it. I've been skeptical of WWII books in recent years and this book really reminded me of why. While I loved seeing German girls living under the Nazi regime take part in a resistance, I was a bit disappointed that we weren't actually following the infamous Sophie Scholl. The character we follow in this POV is named Sophie and without going to far into spoilers, follows Scholl's life in a way, but I wish the character had a different name. Specifically because in the POV from 1980's West Berlin, the main character is in a band named Sophie Scholl. This book does have a lot of important commentary but sometimes the way it was done left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not sure if I would even really recommend this to it's target audience because of the way the commentary was placed in some parts. I usually love everything Libba Bray writes so it was definitely a surprise to me that this didn't work for me. I was enjoying this book and it was a solid 3.5-4 star until about the 60% mark when the plot really starts moving. I'm hoping that this was just a fluke experience on my end because I do still think this book covers very important topics.

This story spans three different time frames and it takes quite some time to understand how all the stories fit together. As it always happens in books like this, I tend to favor one timeline's story over the others and this wasn't an exception. Bray is a great writer and each unique setting was interesting, but I really wanted to be in Kleinwald for this whole story. I did not care for Jenny's story in Berlin in 1980, and felt that we are still too close to COVID for that to be a main era to focus on - I understand why she picked all three, but I just wanted more Sophie, Hanna, and the rest of the resistance.

Libba Bray is incapable of writing anything not filled with magic, even a story where there are no actual magic elements. I'm absolutely overcome how much I love all three parts to this story, especially Hanna and Sophie's. Bray writes so excellent relationships between characters, it's remained one of my favorite things about her writing. The complexity of the characters in each setting, from the 1940s to 1980s to 2020 and the connections between each, really make this story shine. I really can't do more than gush about generally everything, this is a must read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is beautifully devastating, tragically romantic, and everything I need in a novel. Libba Bray masterfully weaves together stories from across three periods of time in an informative and heartwrenching methodology. These stories focus on the beauty and optimism that can remain even in the darkest hours of humanity when people believe that they can become the light. Through love and loss, death and new life, and faith that positive power can be achieved, this novel beautifully portrays the legacies of individuals rising to the challenge, across almost a century, in hope for a better world.

In Under the Same Stars three different groups of teens in three different decades are connected by the mystery of the magical Bridegroom's Oak in Germany, which helps people find true love. The first setting is 1940s Germany where Sophie and Hannah are resistance fighters during WW II. They not only find true love through the oak, but use it to pass valuable forged documents to those trying to escape the Nazis. In 1980s West Berlin Texan transplant Jenny meets German queer punk Lena, falls in love with her and transforms herself into Dallas, a violin player in a punk rock band. In 2020 Brooklyn, Miles and Chloe are trying to adjust to the pandemic’s restrictions, as they explore the mysteries in her grandmother’s scrapbook, featuring two German teens who disappeared in 1941. The interwoven stories begin to come together as Miles and Chloe discover her grandmother is Hannah, who survived WWII. The themes of connections and the transformative elements of storytelling, which are explored, will resonate with the readers of this powerful new novel.

Under the Same Stars follows three timelines - early 1940s Germany, summer of 1980 in West Berlin, and spring of 2020 in Brooklyn - and I quickly realized how relevant all of these times were still to today, which made this hard to get through as it hit a little too close to home. I picked this up because I loved Libba Bray's debut trilogy, and though I am not usually a WWII-book reader, I wanted to read another of her stories for nostalgia. The author's note said she wrote this primarily during quarantine, so the fact that it released post-inauguration day of 2024 was too needed.

This is hard a hard book to review because I had so many mixed emotions throughout, but it earned 5 stars for that reason. All the main characters are in their late-teens and were forced to make a decision about what they believed in and what they were willing to stand for. There is a fairytale woven throughout of the Bridegroom's Oak, a matchmaking tree in the forest that they use to exchange letters and dream beneath. As the book goes on we hear variations on this that become more and more real.

In the 1940s, we follow two best friends at the beginning of the Nazi regime. The Hilter Youth groups have come to their village and as they grow up over a few years, and their older brothers/friends return from war, they realize they can no longer stand for the propaganda and hate. It was interesting to see the subtle progress this made over time and also how fast things can turn.

In 1980 West Berlin, Jenny had just moved with her family from Texas and sneaks around to involve herself in the punk movement, those protesting the Berlin Wall and those trapped on the communist side. She feels she is finally able to be her true self, out from under the thumb of her socialite mother, and quickly finds herself in precarious situations. I did not know as much about this point in history, so I enjoyed learning about the situation.

2020 Brooklyn starts at the beginning of the pandemic quarantine, with one of Miles' moms stuck in Amsterdam and one a nurse living closer to the hospital so not to bring Covid home. He is a HS senior and on his own, still trying to do school online and connect with his friends through video calls. There was a lot of this quarantine-life that I forgot about, though I did not live in a large city, I was reminded of the pot banging NYC did for the first responders at night and washing groceries. Miles reconnects with his friend Chloe, and helps her research a box of pictures and letters of her grandma's, of two girls that went missing 80 years ago. They find evidence of Nazi resistance and start connecting the dots on the fairytales she told Chloe.

I loved how the stories interwove and all had messages of resistance and standing for good. It definitely left me with a lot to think about and reflect in my own life. I began this as an ARC, but since it was taking me so long to work through I switched to audio once it released and loved how it was produced - with multiple narrators and things like recording noises when Chloe is replying her grandma's stories. Would definitely recommend reading through audiobook. Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for providing an eARC for my honest opinion.

This was a wonderful and unexpectedly timely story. I really adored how the story unfolded with the three different timelines woven with into a masterfully crafted overlap that keeps you guessing until the end. All three also highlight time periods in history where there was a forced mass upheaval from a young adults point of view as they grapple with carving out who they are and going after the life they want to have instead of the life they are expected to from the society around them. It's a powerful juxtaposition.

When I saw that Libba Bray had a new YA novel coming out, I shrieked with delight! I have been a fan of Libba's since A Great and Terrible Beauty.

Under the Same Stars is a behemoth of a book divided into three time periods, 1940's Germany, 1980's West Germany and 2020 New York City.

It is a multigenerational ride of trauma, resilience and resistance.
Sophie and Hanna cling to each other and their small town as Hitler's power grows. In the 80's American living abroad Jenny tries to find herself amongst the punk movement in a country separated by a wall. In 2010, as a global pandemic upends life during their senior year, Miles and Chloe patch up a rocky relationship as new news comes to light about a mystery surrounding Chloe's grandmother.

The pacing was really slow until about 50% of the book. I did not care for and glossed through the fable sections. To be honest, I was conflicted about reading the sections set in the pandemic (too fresh for me) and the 1980's section was horribly out of place. I think if Bray stuck to two povs (1940s and present day), the book would have felt more cohesive.

I despised the 1980s section describing the punk movement so much. Jenny and her punk friends were so unlikeable I did not care about this section at all.
I wanted to love this book, the ending was breathtaking, but it took too much slogging to get to it.

I still love Libba Bray, and Sophie and Hanna's story will haunt me forever, but this fell flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Macmillan for the e-galley in exchange for my honest review.

I haven’t read a Libba Bray book since The Diviners (which is one of my favorites), and I had forgotten how much I love this author’s writing. This was an epic story covering about three generations of teens living in three significant periods of history (WWII, Berlin Wall era, and Covid/George Floyd); and, I was equally invested in all three storylines and how they all tied together. The main characters show a significant amount of growth and depth, and are just easy to enjoy. There was definitely tragedy, but also hope and unity. I will highly recommend this to those who like historical fiction and/or YA fiction.

The Gemma Doyle trilogy is an all time favorite of mine, and I think there’s no doubt that Libba Bray does excellent work in the YA fantasy sphere. Of more mixed results have been her non-fantasy novels, and I think this one is the best of the lot.

This is a beautifully written, three timeline piece of historical fiction, and while it takes a while to make the connections, all three stories are both worthy on their own and enhanced by their relationship with each other.

The links between them are a bit loose, but they do work and I think that semi-tenuous style of connection actually makes them feel more plausible. Bray seems to get the crux of what matters in all three eras, and she’s written a lovable cast of characters in each of them.

The World War II timeline is a bit tough to read at the end, though that again probably makes it more realistic, and the nobility and heroism of it make it less painful, even if anything connected to this era feels extra hard to take at the moment given what’s going on in our world right now.

To that end, one of the things I loved about this book is its profound sense of hope, which I think is something I needed right now, and I loved that Bray zeroed in on the idea that sometimes the way we affect change is going to feel small, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be impactful.

I’ve been reading Libba Bray books for over twenty years. It astounds me to say that but it’s true. I started with A Great and Terrible Beauty, shortly after it was published in paperback. There’s only one book of hers I haven’t read (Beauty Queens), though I do own it and have it on my TBR. I was ecstatic to read Under the Same Stars as an ARC.

Bray has a way with characters and historical settings, especially. Each point of view had a unique voice and a unique setting that I had no trouble picturing as I read. Hanna and Sophie in 1940s Germany. Lena in 1980s Germany. Miles in New York in 2020. The last one hit the hardest in a lot of ways, as fresh as that time is in my mind. With the world as we know it falling apart around us, I think back to those early days of the pandemic and wonder how those times were more hopeful than those we’re living through now. Even when circumstances tell you otherwise, get out there and do something. Stand up, speak out. Protest. March. Call. Email. Do something. Even if it’s small. Do something. It’s better than doing nothing.

I love the progression of the story. I felt like the pacing was near perfect, especially the back third of the book. As secrets were revealed and threads of story were tied off, I looked back and wondered how I missed the signs. I had an inkling about a couple of the big reveals but was more than content to let the story lead the way. There’s always something comfortable about Bray’s writing, something I will always come back to and find a home in. Everything is so seamless, switching between settings and decades and characters. The interjections of the fairytales and the bits from other people’s point of view aside from our main three.

There is no obvious magic in this book, as there is in so many of Bray’s other books. There is a certain magic in the power of the very few accomplishing a lot. How one person can stand up and cause a tidal wave with their actions.

Lena is my favorite transformation, I think. Her personal progression and bravery through her summer in Germany was inspirational and really fun to read. I’m a 90s baby so it wasn’t a time I lived in but I found familiarity in the references to brands, magazines, celebrities, etc. I loved that her downstairs neighbor wanted her subscription to an American teen magazine, that she wanted American makeup and things like that. The fascination with America that other people have is so fun. The obsession with snacks and visits to malls and Target, when that’s just our normal everyday will never not amuse me. While Lena realizes that she’s a lesbian before she goes to Germany, she really embraces that aspect of herself and loses a lot of the shame she held inside. Against the backdrop of the Berlin wall, such things seem less important, especially when you have people who will support you, no matter what. Sophie is me, in a lot of ways, though I’m not sure how brave I would be in her circumstances. Miss Lonelyhearts, writing letters to be placed in a magical tree so she can find her true love. Keeping the fairytale alive and being hopeful for the future. She was a ray of sunshine for Hanna, and for me.

I highly recommend this book to fans of historical fiction. I think Libba Bray fans will enjoy this slightly different book from her, as well. While it doesn’t hold the magic of her two most popular series, it does have everything else I loved about those books. The characters and friendships have the same feel of those in The Diviners and in A Great and Terrible Beauty. There is depth there that I can’t find anywhere else. Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for an eARC of this book!