I found this book a really mixed bag. There were some aspects of it that I really enjoyed and others that I found quite difficult to get my head around.
Firstly, it was a very clever imagining around a real person - Stella was a spy for the Nazis in Berlin, and countless Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps because she gave them up to the Gestapo. The author has weaved in a young Swiss man, Friedrich, who, for slightly unclear reasons, decides to go and live in Berlin in the midst of a World War, while it's under Nazi control. He is, to be a honest, pretty clueless, and seems to be just trying to live his best life in one of the worst places to try and do that but, thanks to his Swiss passport, he seems to get away with it.
I really enjoyed the way that the writer, amidst the stories of frivolity, dances and life drawing classes, intersperses what is going on from a global standpoint at the same time. At the beginning of each chapter is a page detailing world events that are happening that are beyond the young man's view of the world. He is so taken with Stella and his life living in an expensive hotel. It showed how, for those who had privilege and were not being hunted by the Nazis, life wasn't all that bad which is an interesting perspective that I hadn't really considered before. There are also seemingly random accounts of the arrests of Jews in Berlin, which all make sense as you reach the end of the book.
Overall though, I found the story of Stella really compelling and I could not work out how she was so carefree when her life should have been in real danger. The overall story is a little slow though, and essentially not a lot happens throughout the novel in terms of the actual storyline, and perhaps this is what makes the contrast of what is going on in the wider world more striking.
Firstly, it was a very clever imagining around a real person - Stella was a spy for the Nazis in Berlin, and countless Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps because she gave them up to the Gestapo. The author has weaved in a young Swiss man, Friedrich, who, for slightly unclear reasons, decides to go and live in Berlin in the midst of a World War, while it's under Nazi control. He is, to be a honest, pretty clueless, and seems to be just trying to live his best life in one of the worst places to try and do that but, thanks to his Swiss passport, he seems to get away with it.
I really enjoyed the way that the writer, amidst the stories of frivolity, dances and life drawing classes, intersperses what is going on from a global standpoint at the same time. At the beginning of each chapter is a page detailing world events that are happening that are beyond the young man's view of the world. He is so taken with Stella and his life living in an expensive hotel. It showed how, for those who had privilege and were not being hunted by the Nazis, life wasn't all that bad which is an interesting perspective that I hadn't really considered before. There are also seemingly random accounts of the arrests of Jews in Berlin, which all make sense as you reach the end of the book.
Overall though, I found the story of Stella really compelling and I could not work out how she was so carefree when her life should have been in real danger. The overall story is a little slow though, and essentially not a lot happens throughout the novel in terms of the actual storyline, and perhaps this is what makes the contrast of what is going on in the wider world more striking.