Lebensborn

De: Jo Ann Bender

Narrado por: Matt Weight

A romantic fairy tale was being spun in Europe before and during WWII. Only honey blondes or young women with Aryan coloring were hearing this enchanting tale told by the SS and Gestapo. Shush! It was a secret, able to be proven, but still few people heard the tale then or now.

It was told in the time of war and economic stress which made it so alluring. The story was about luxurious places in remote and sequestered hotels, ski lodges and palatial villas which had been restructured and furnished elaborately.

The food was plentiful, all you could want. You'd feel safe, away from the war, tucked behind an ornate, curving and beautiful driveway leading to a beautiful building behind guarded wrought-iron fences. All you had to agree to do was to have a baby for Hitler's Master Race.

The Lebensborn program has become a novel. It is the tale of a courageous French girl in the Resistance who is sent to one of these homes by the SS officer who commandeers her home, her village, and her innocence. It has received a gold medal for action fiction.

©Copyright 2010 Jo Ann J. Bender (P)2012 Jo Ann J. Bender

Awful!

No words for how bad this book was. The supposed "history" in it was not very accurate. The author's characters were shallow and obsessed with sex. Overall it was terrible. I returned the book.

Disjointed

I was looking forward to some historical fiction about the Lebensborn program, instead I got this disappointing novel.

As the story went along, I began to feel like there was no ultimate point. What was the story about? The seduction of an innocent French girl? Life in the Lebensborn program? Escaping the Nazis? Sure a story can contain many threads, but they still have to come together in SOME cohesive manner! This book did not deliver.

It felt so anchorless at times that I wonder if I just missed something. For example, Antoinette never conveyed she felt like a prisoner or that she was being held captive, so why all this fervor to escape? And triggered by something so silly as not getting recognition for her pastries!?!? I MUST have misunderstood something or feel asleep and missed a few chapters and subsequently fell out of step with the plot.

The last third of the book was especially tough to finish because tangents kept veering off into and coming from nowhere! I kept thinking “Where did he come from?” “How did we get to this point?” “What’s going on, did I just skip a chapter?” it was annoying and confusing.

It all felt very disjointed. As I am pretty sure is the case with most readers, once you declare you are not enjoying a book yet decide you will finish it anyway, it’s automatically a chore. I’m glad I am done.