Elise Sontag is a
typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced
from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two
decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer.
The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the
armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved
and familiar, including her own identity.The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences.
I am a big fan of books by Susan Meissner, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed this one as well. Although, for me, A Fall of Marigolds, is her absolute best book! This novel took me a little longer to read and once I realized that was going to be the case, I settled in and really dug into the story. I discovered so much about internment camps in the United States during WWII, which I am embarrassed to say I don't remember ever hearing or learning about. I felt so sad and lonely for the main character, Elise, in the early years of her life. I can't imagine the fear she must have experienced, arriving in Germany that first day. I will tell you that the first part of the story seemed a little slow and the last part felt too fast, but it all evened out and I didn't really care because I had to know what happened. There is a dual perspective timeline in the story, but it is heavily told in the past, which worked, but I still would have liked more about Elise when she was older. All in all, this was a solid read for me. For a WWII book to teach me something new, after all the books I've read centered during that time, it was completely worth it!
* I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review *
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