Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke Review

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman

Title: Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

Author: Anne Blankman

Series: Prisoner of Night and Fog #2

Publisher: Blazer + Bray

Publication Date: April 21, 2015

Genre: Fiction; Historical Fiction; Romance; Adventure; Mystery; Young Adult

Pages: 406

Format: ARC

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The girl known as Gretchen Whitestone has a secret: She used to be part of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. More than a year after she made an enemy of her old family friend and fled Munich, she lives with a kindly English family, posing as an ordinary German immigrant, and is preparing to graduate from high school. Her love, Daniel Cohen, is a reporter in town. For the first time in her life, Gretchen is content.

But then, Daniel gets a telegram that sends him back to Germany, and Gretchen’s world turns upside-down. And when she receives word that Daniel is wanted for murder, she has to face the danger she thought she’d escaped-and return to her homeland.

Gretchen must do everything she can to avoid capture and recognition, even though saving Daniel will mean consorting with her former friends, the Nazi elite. And as they work to clear Daniel’s name, Gretchen and Daniel discover a deadly conspiracy stretching from the slums of Berlin to the Reichstag itself. Can they dig up the explosive truth and get out in time-or will Hitler discover them first?

*Sigh*Historical fiction is so great.

Gretchen Whitestone was once Adolf Hitler’s pet. She was the perfect niece, and she admired Hitler to the point of fault. After meeting Daniel Cohen, her world shattered, and she ended up in England, free from Hitler’s tight reign over her and Germany. She’s happy, and she sees the life she always wanted stretched out before her. However, when Daniel is captured in Germany, Gretchen must face her horrible past, and triumph over the once inescapable grasp of her Uncle Adolf.

Even though we all know how it ends (Hitler gains control of Germany and starts a war around the world), Anne Blankman still manages to keep me guessing. She writes like there’s a chance of Hitler’s defeat, even if there’s not. When I’m reading her work, I’m in Germany while the Nazis are rising. I’m watching the Nazi parade and seeing Hitler’s stupid little mustache. Her melding of history and fiction together is astounding and thoroughly entertaining. Her painstaking attention to detail is enough to send her novels over the moon.

I love how this book shines a totally new light on who Adolf Hitler was, and how his comrades in his quest for domination acted and thought. I love the historical value of Anne Blankman’s writing, and it totally makes this whole reading historical fiction thing worth it ten times over. Reading and learning are two of my favorite things, and both come in this 406 page package.

I maintain that the Prisoner of Night and Fog series is one of the best World War II novels written, among Code Name Verity and The Book Thief. If there is ever another book in this series, I would read in a heartbeat. 

Afterworlds Review

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

Title: Afterworlds

Author: Scott Westerfeld

Series: None

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: September 23, 2014

Genre: Fantasy; Contemporary; Supernatural; Realistic Fiction; Young Adult

Pages: 599

Format: Hardcover

goodreads

Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she's made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings… 

Told in alternating chapters is Darcy's novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the 'Afterworld' to survive a terrorist attack. But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved - and terrifying - stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.

Ohmygod, this book was so bad. Soooo bad. Like, really, really painful. Honestly, how I even finished it I have no idea.

I’m not even going to rewrite the summary. I really do not feel like reliving it.

It’s almost like Westerfeld couldn’t exactly decide between two stories: one, a paranormal romance about a girl who can pass into the Underworld, and two, a young author learning to “discover herself,” so he smooshed them together and called it a book. Too bad that both were absolutely awful.

I’ll start with the paranormal story, aka the fake story that was serving as a fake manuscript. It was actually the lesser of the two horrible evils because this one actually had a plot line. You’re probably thinking, “But wait, don’t all published stories at least have a discernable plot line?” I was once like you, all naïve in thinking that publishers would at least make sure their book had some plot to it, but oh contraire, my dear reader, that apparently is not a requirement. This one did however have a sliver of a conflict and just a bit of a standard plot line. And that is the only good thing I can say about it. Throughout the entirety of this book, all the main character’s fellow author friends kept saying how good her story was and how creative and how amazing. Lies. All of them. The characters left much to be wanted and the story line was utterly atrocious. The world building was virtually nonexistent and did Westerfeld forget how to write dialogue? And even if I wanted to like it, I couldn't because I was being constantly interrupted and reminded that what I was reading was in fact not a real story. How am I supposed to submerse myself in a story when I know it's fake? I’ve read Westerfeld before, and I once was a huge fan of his. I really liked Uglies and The Leviathan series, but this book? He would’ve been better off just not writing it.

Now for the realistic fiction part. Oh god. There were parts in this book where I just all together skipped these sections because I could not stand the main character. She was whiny and did nothing to help herself. And what about using all of your money from a manuscript (that sucks by the way, read above) and spending it on living in New York City instead of college is smart in any way? Seriously. How stupid is this character? And news flash, if you’re going to write a story, you might want to make sure that the story has a plot! Plot is important. Like, really important, and it does not exist here. There was literally no conflict. Absolutely none. I would’ve gotten the same effect if I had read a story about a deer skipping across a field. I was bored out of my mind, and I really saw no point in reading Afterworlds. If this story, no…book (there were no story elements whatsoever, so it really wasn’t a story now was it?) is based on Westerfeld’s real experiences of being published (although I doubt it by how ridiculously unrealistic it is), I feel bad for Westerfeld, and I also don’t see any reason why he should share with us his incredibly boring tale of publishing.  

Overall, two stories were shoved together in a haphazard fashion and without any consideration for the individual stories themselves. The cost was the quality of both stories, and the result was a book I would recommend to no one ever. Let’s just say I wish I had never picked up this horrifying excuse for a book. 

Prisoner of Night and Fog Review

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

Title: Prisoner of Night and Fog

Author: Anne Blankman

Series: Prisoner of Night and Fog #1

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Publication Date: April 22, 2014

Genre: Historical Fiction; Romance; Mystery; Young Adult

Pages: 401

Format: Hardback

goodreads

In 1930s Munich, danger lurks behind dark corners, and secrets are buried deep within the city. But Gretchen Müller, who grew up in the National Socialist Party under the wing of her "uncle" Dolf, has been shielded from that side of society ever since her father traded his life for Dolf's, and Gretchen is his favorite, his pet.

Uncle Dolf is none other than Adolf Hitler. And Gretchen follows his every command.

Until she meets a fearless and handsome young Jewish reporter named Daniel Cohen. Gretchen should despise Daniel, yet she can't stop herself from listening to his story: that her father, the adored Nazi martyr, was actually murdered by an unknown comrade. She also can't help the fierce attraction brewing between them, despite everything she's been taught to believe about Jews.

As Gretchen investigates the very people she's always considered friends, she must decide where her loyalties lie. Will she choose the safety of her former life as a Nazi darling, or will she dare to dig up the truth—even if it could get her and Daniel killed?

From debut author Anne Blankman comes this harrowing and evocative story about an ordinary girl faced with the extraordinary decision to give up everything she's ever believed . . . and to trust her own heart instead.

You read so many books about World War II, but you almost never read about Nazi Germany from a Nazi’s point of view. I’ve read my fair share of WWII-based books (it’s one of my favorite subjects to read about), but I have never read one like Prisoner of Night and Fog.

Gretchen Müller is the beloved princess of the National Socialist Party, favored by Adolf Hitler himself. Daughter of the famed martyr that saved Hitler’s life, Gretchen has little to question in her life. But when she meets Daniel Cohen, a Jew so unlike the enemy he is made out to be, she is forced into second guessing everything she’s ever been taught. About the Jews, about Hitler, even about her father’s death. This epic tale teaches us the difficulties of finding what’s right and wrong for yourself, and breaking free of an oppression you didn’t even know you were trapped under.

What made this book so great was not the plot (a bit predictable), the characters (who occasionally fell flat), or the setting (amazingly realistic). It was the fact that half of what Blankman was writing actually happened. According to the lengthy author’s note at the end, about half the characters actually existing and a lot of the pivotal events are ones that you could find in a history textbook. The politics of the Germany in that time were nothing if not complicated. This book untangled the mess of questions I’ve always had about WWII and Germany before Hitler’s reign.

It surprised me that Hitler’s character was as big as it was. He had a personality and dialogue in this book, which is so unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Usually he is minor character, mentioned briefly in passing for the effect of the setting or plot. He is almost never a flesh-and-blood (metaphorically speaking) character like he was in this book. Understandably, Hitler is one of the most mysterious historical figures of all time. Almost nothing is known of his past or who he was before becoming a German politician and eventually one of the most hated tyrants this world has ever seen. It’s honestly incredible how Blankman managed to capture such an ambiguous character.

While you get to know Hitler on an intriguing level, you also learn so much about the Nazi party, not just as a political faction that persecuted innocent people, but also as individuals who honestly believed what they were doing was right. You also discover people who brave enough to stand against the person who would ruin thousands of lives, who was, even then, terrifying and powerful.

It still astounds me that a person who was that obvious of a psychopath came into so much power. This book explores that subject and expands on your knowledge of what really happened during that time. Phenomenally interesting and hard to put down, definitely worth reading and reflecting over.    

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

April 21, 2015