The World That We Knew

To be fair, when your exemplar of the form is All the Light we Cannot See, everything else suffers by comparison. It's clear this book is well loved and honestly, the hand-sell is pretty solid. WWII drama focused on three young girls struggling to survive and finding hope with the help of a bit of magical realism.

And yet.

Death and danger abound but it felt perfunctory. I felt no stakes even as the roster of characters is slowly whittled down.

These kids are just so remarkable. Julien is a math prodigy and an adept teacher. Victor a natural explosives expert with the French Resistance. Etti of course is nothing short of a full blown wizard able to conjure life itself. And Lea is in possession of a monstrously strong golem who spends most of the time making bread and dancing with a heron. Why are these two on the run again?

These trappings are more suited to a YA fantasy set in a some dire, post-apocalyptic world instead of trying to balance these fantastical elements against the real-world backdrop of Nazism. A bit of a swing and a miss for me.