I cannot stop thinking about this book. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the book at first, because I was afraid it was going to be the familiar “from opposite sides of the river” trope and it was hard for me to buy the fact they were together for less than a year before he became a POW. But! Oh my, Part II. I don’t want to say anything else, because of spoilers. It was heartbreaking for those that went to war and for those left behind. The author is great at analogies and metaphors - I see you Wolff is a sheep.

Surprisingly I didn’t look up the author while I was reading it, but was shocked the author was male. I’m not sure why. I’m here for it.

I’d give it 4.8 stars.

This beautiful book although seemingly well researched is almost as if it should have been listed as Young Adult. It is difficult for me to review this one as it was mainly a love story with sprinklings of history, without really delving too deeply into any of them. A lovely story, nonetheless, however I recommend “Fur Elise” for a younger group of readers.
Thank you to NetGalley to for the gift of reading this book

A touching story of a POW from WWII. When he finally comes home in 1956, he finds everything different. His memories are different. So heartbreaking. A must read.

4.5⭐️

[a copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher from netgalley. thank you!]

thoroughly enjoyed the character development & writing style of this historical fiction novel about a returning German POW from the Soviet Union. it was interesting to read about this perspective in historical fiction. highly recommend.

I really enjoyed Fur Elise. I’ve read a lot of historical fiction, but this one is different in a couple of ways. First, it tells the story of WWII from the perspective of German characters, rather than the typical Allied “good guys.” Second, it tells the story of a German POW who was held in Russia for 13 years. I had no idea that that happened, and always appreciate learning things I didn’t know through fiction. I also discovered more about what life was like in Communist East Germany after the war; again, something you don’t typically run into in popular historical fiction books.

The first part of the story captures the feeling of young love in a beautiful way, against the backdrop of Hitler and the beginnings of WW II. The second, darker, section of the book focuses on what happens when our hero, Hans, returns from his incarceration. In both instances, Dresden takes center stage, with great descriptions of the city. Through flashbacks, there are glimpses as to what life was like in Dresden during and after the bombing, as well as what it was like in the Russian POW camp. We get to know the flawed and traumatized yet ultimately human characters in a way that has stuck with me long after I finished reading.

Fur Elise is a book that is well-researched and has some of everything – it’s a love story, a war story, a tragedy, and a thriller, with some unexpected twists as well as moments of subtle humor. Ultimately, it’s a story of hope. It’s a quick read, and I found it hard to put down. Highly recommend.

I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. It's premised on the historical fact (which we learn in the first chapter) that the Soviet Union held on to some of their German POWs until the mid-1950s. It's sort of a take on Rip Van Winkle (which is referred to in the text), with Hans, the main character, being released from a POW camp in 1956 and effectively waking up in a world he no longer recognizes. I thought this was a clever idea for a novel.

The first section of the book takes place at the beginning of World War II. We meet Hans and Elise, a young Dresden couple attempting to begin and maintain a romance as Germany descends into genocide and total war. As this section moves along, there's a sense of impending doom, since the reader knows what's going to happen to Hans, Dresden, and Germany. This section ends when Hans leaves Dresden to fight in the war.

The second, longer section of the book takes place when Hans returns to a world he barely recognizes. Neither Hans nor Elise (nor the reader) knows what happened to the other while they were apart, and the underlying tension in this section is the result of these secrets gradually being revealed and their relationship slowly being rekindled. The book concludes with an emotional chapter set in 2005, where we learn the fate of all the characters.

I liked learning about life in East Germany during the Cold War, especially since novels with this setting are usually about spies rather than ordinary people. I also thought the descriptions of Dresden before and after its destruction were compelling. There have obviously been other novels set in Dresden during the war, but I never thought about what the city was like ten years later. A really enjoyable read.

This book attracted me because of its premise — a retelling of the Rip van Winkle tale, referred to a number of times in the text. Rather than falling asleep for twenty years, the protagonist (Hans) leaves Dresden and his teenage sweetheart when he’s conscripted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. After thirteen years being held as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union he returns to find that not only has the city changed beyond all measure, but the political situation and the whole culture he left has changed, too.

The book is in two parts and for me it took too long to get to the interesting part. Hans’s developing relationship with Elise didn’t hold my attention for that long and a lot of it felt irrelevant knowing what was to come. Once Hans returned and faced the demons of what had happened both to his city and to the people he loved, and had to come to terns with a new political situation that was hostile to him, the book became much more interesting and there was much more of a sene of purpose about it. It got better as it went on and the ending had a twist that I genuinely didn’t expect — so, hats off to the author for that!

That said, the book isn’t without its issues. To my disappointment it lacked any real sense of place— something that’s crucial in a location-dependent book such as this. I don’t mean that it lacked detail, because it didn’t: the descriptions of the cityscape before and after Hans’s exile were, as far as I can tell, immaculate. The problem was in the telling. Party it’s because it’s an American book written in American English and had no nod to its central European setting. Even a small touch, such as the odd word in German (such as a character addressing their mother as mutti rather than mom) might have lifted it a little and made a difference.

I hate to say it, but the main problem I have with this is that the writing was pedestrian at best and that made it pretty hard to read at times. The story, as I’ve said, is thrilling at points (certainly once it gets going) but I always felt I was very distant from it. Neither the characters nor the place (and I’ve recently been to Dresden and read a lot of eye-witness accounts of what happened there) felt real to me and even the graphic (and accurate) descriptions of the horrors of the firestorm failed to touch my emotions as they ought to. It was all telling and almost no showing and I’m sorry to say that in many places I found it dull. I thought the dialogue was clunky and I never really felt invested in the characters. I didn’t feel their fear or their pain; I was’t shocked or angry as I read. I just read, without emotion and that’s definitely not what I would expect from a story dealing with such traumatic events.

I think that’s a pity because, as I say, this offered a great story and a really interesting premise. But I’m sorry: I just think it could have been delivered a whole lot better. 

(I’ve given it three stars but I think if I could I would actually give it 2.5.)

Thank to Netgalley and the author for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

An interesting novel with a realistic insight to trauma. The descriptions of Dresden before and after the bombings are very well researched. The characters were all rather cliché (the typical Nazi, Stasi, social status differences) and lacked depth. What really annoyed me though was that nearly 50% of the novel focused on how Hans and Elise, two teenagers, met before the war. This was quite boring for me and left me wondering whether the novel had been written for young adults. No need to say that only the second half of the book got my attention. Shame.
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I have voluntarily written an honest review.

This book was a 3.5 for me. The characters and storyline held a lot of appeal. It felt like it had the makings of an epic and it just fell short. There are these huge events: the bombing of Dresden, ten years in a soviet camp, and living in East Germany and I was left feeling like I didn’t really get enough depth on any of them.