Wunderland and other April Reads

I finished 12 books in April:

Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein (ARC)

Normal People by Sally Rooney (ARC)
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Dust by Patricia Cornwell (audiobook)
Song Yet Sung by James McBride
End of Watch by Stephen King
The Archived by Victoria Schwab
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
On Writing by Stephen King
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Freefall by Mindi Scott
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton (audiobook)

My favorite ARC this month was Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein (review below). I also reviewed an ARC of Normal People by Sally Rooney. Click here for my review.

I received an Advance Reader’s Edition of Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein from the publisher (Crown/ Penguin Random House) in exchange for an honest review. Wunderland is scheduled for release April 23, 2019.

Wunderland is a story about Ilse, a young woman in 1930s Berlin who joins the Hitler Youth movement. This is complicated by her friendship with Renate, another young woman who tries to join as well, but is turned away.

We learn Ilse’s story partly through the eyes of Renate as their friendship first slowly fades and then implodes with the revelation of secrets and betrayals. The rest of Ilse’s story comes from her daughter, Ava, and what she learns from letters left for her to read upon her mother’s death. Ava’s relationship with her mother has always been strained, mostly due to secrets Ilse kept. Ava doesn’t know who her father was, she doesn’t know why her mother abandoned her to a German orphanage after the war, she doesn’t know why her mother wrote so many letters to a woman named Renate.

Through the eyes of Renate and Ava, we slowly begin to understand the reasons for Ilse’s secrets and choices, though we don’t necessarily begin to forgive her for them. This novel does not apologize for Ilse’s choices, it does not ask us to forgive her, but it does remind us that people make bad choices and there are usually reasons behind those choices, not just the label of evil. Sometimes they can make up for those choices, other times the consequences linger for generations.

While this story moves back in forth in time from 1930s Berlin to 1980s New York, Epstein did a very good job of keeping the story line clear. There are twists and turns and surprise, but nothing felt out of place or forced into the story.

The same applies to both setting and character. Epstein captured the essence of these places during these times, mostly through the interactions of her characters with the world they are in. Especially well done, in my opinion, was the character of Ilse. While we never see the story from her point of view, the interactions of Ava and Renate with her over several decades give us some insight into her actions. We do get to hear from Ilse a bit from the letters she left behind, letters that she wrote to Renate after the end of their friendship, but never mailed. These letters fill in some pieces of the story that Ava and Renate were unable to witness on their own. The result is a picture of Ilse and her motivations that is filled in enough for us to get a sense of the woman, but with enough small gaps and shadows that we don’t feel 100% confident that we fully understand her.

Overall, Wunderland successfully explores the need to be part of something bigger than oneself and how that need can send ripples through generations.