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I am a total wreck, yet I am elated by this beautiful story of love, loss, and endurance. This novel takes place in two timelines and is mostly located in East Germany after WWII. On the day she is recognised for her contribution to the world of photography, Bittina finds out that her ex-husband is very sick. Nine years earlier, she was forced to leave East Germany and leave behind her baby daughter after her husband found out that she was having an affair with a local teacher and threaten all t...
The seeds of this story are planted at the end of WWII in East Germany, as the populace is forced to adapt to soviet rule after enduring the Nazis. Two young people facing tribulations together drives an artificial romantic attachment that shouldn't have been, resulting in a stifling marriage. The young woman finds actual love, bears the man's child, and then is forced out of the country by her bureaucrat husband before the child is even a year old. Flash forward 10 years: the young woman is an
Romance and politics done wellThis story of a woman in Germany after WWII is told from, mostly, the standpoint of her life after the Russians take over. She is newly married at the time just after the war and her life is changed from a Nazi regime rapidly to that of Soviet Russian dominance. The plot reverts from the late 1960's Chicago where Bettina ultimately immigrates and the 1940's as she flashes back to what brought her there. The man she married in Germany near the end of the war and her
This book! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ What a unique story about post World War II. Bettina Heilstrom lives on an East German island. She marries Werner who later joins the secret police. This makes things unsafe for Bettina.Bettina then falls in love with a man with opposing ideals from Werner. He’s a rebel. Ultimately, Werner finds out about Bettina’s relationship, and she must choose between going to prison or leaving her love and her child.Bettina finds her way to the United States working as photographe...
A well written and fascinating account of the characters lives at the end of WWII, on the island of Rugen in East Germany. It also takes place in two time frames, in 1961 Chicago, where Bettina, the main character is a photographer, and the back story 1943 in East Germany, where we read about a lot of the harsh politics that went on in Germany after the war, The Cold War divided Germany between the Western Allies in the West and Soviets in the East. Germans had little voice in government until 1...
I found it slow moving
Having lived through the time period of this book I had an interesting response. I am still somewhat baffled by why it was so strong. Somewhere in the first 25 pages, the author refers to the “media “ in the voice of one of the characters. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. We had newspapers and magazines and radio, eventually t.v., but not “media”. I am amazed that her editors didn’t catch that anachronism. The persistent use of the word and a few others, ending with “physicality “ a word...
#ThisTerribleBeauty #NetGalley Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union publishing for providing me with ARC.I love Historical Fiction so much but this novel is very slow and boring. I tried so hard to continue this novel but I am feeling sorry, I don't love the characters as I expected.I am so sorry Katrin , I wished that I loved it.The cover is amazing and I loved.
A beautiful, lyrically-written book. Technically, yes, it's a love triangle: an East German housewife coming of age at the end of WWII, her bureaucrat husband who is mesmerized into the secret police of USSR-controlled Berlin, and the firebrand soldier-turned-writer who comes between them...but it's so much more. It's about how personal decisions become desperate and rash when your emotions are the only things you can control in a Soviet state. It's about how guilt resonates--as a nation, with t...
Captivating, pensive, and absorbing!This Terrible Beauty is an intriguing, compelling tale that sweeps you away to East Germany following WWII when the country is still reeling with the aftermaths of war, and the new Soviet rule is causing repression, economic instability, political upheaval, social injustice, and lack of freedom.The prose is evocative and vivid. The characters are lonely, complex, and vulnerable. And the plot using a past/present, back-and-forth style is a moving tale about war...
Thank you to the publishing house for providing a review copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.If you are looking for a historical fiction novel that you can really sink your teeth into, this is the one! Set on the shores of an East German Island, Bettina is struggling to figure out her new life, now that World War II has ended.She ends up marrying an older bureaucrat, Werner, who seems to adore her.Shortly after their marriage though, he joins the secret police, a role he nev...
This book did a great job with historical facts and painting the picture very well. It was lacking for me with the characters - I wanted to like them more but for me they were a little flat.
This book had the potential of being five stars, but something about it fell a little flat for me. The story follows Bettina Heilstrom who marries young in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of East Germany and falls into an unhappy marriage with her husband Werner who is rising in the ranks of the Russian secret police. But then Bettina falls in love with Peter, a local teacher and dreamer who sweeps her off her feet. After giving birth to her daughter, Bettina is caught redhanded by her hus...
I enjoyed the uniqueness of a literary/women’s novel playing out in East Germany, without any of the tired Cold War spy themes associated with that setting. The author did an excellent job of conveying a sense of place and highlighting the cultural confusion Germans on the “other side” of the wall experienced in the early 1950s, as they struggled with their responsibility for Nazi atrocities, while wondering if communism would be an improvement, only to realize they’d helped create (under Soviet...
I enjoyed this book immensely. I have read a lot of books set during the WWII time period but not one describing life in Germany after the war. And the progression of how East Germany developed. This book gave great insight into the hard choices that Bettina had to make and how her life in the GDR shaped those choices. I felt like it was a realistic ending and even more so after reading the epilogue.
THIS TERRIBLE BEAUTY by Katrin Schumann is a beautifully-written and compelling work of historical fiction that will stay on my mind for a long time. Inspired by actual historical events, the story has a past and present timeline that follows the heartbreaking journey of main character, Bettina Heilstrom as she seeks to rebuild her life after a devastating loss. The past timeline is set on an island in East Germany after World War II has ended and Germany has been divided. East Germany is under
Thanks to Great Thoughts Great Readers (FB Page) and Lake Union for this ARC.I always enjoy historical novels. This one is no exception. It goes from the present in Chicago in 1965 to 1935 in Germany with Bettina as it's main character. She lived a lonely life with a husband she didn't love but found a teacher who she did love. She ends up having an affair with him and has a daughter. Who's daughter? We never find out. When her husband finds out, it's either her leaving Germany w/out her daughte...
A novel that takes on a life of it's own in today's political environmentThe writing of this novel was a worthwhile activity as it is a reflection of what can happen to any country or to anyone who truly gives up freedom. Be it giving up freedoms to a more pervasive government in our lives or to a more dominant person, we see in this novel the devastation it causes to the soul of the country and/or the soul of a person. This is an absolutely beautiful love story. But for me it is more a love sto...
Linda's Book Obsession Reviews "This Terrible Beauty" by Katrin Schumann, Lake Union Publishing, March 1, 2020.Katrin Schumann, author of "This Terrible Beauty has written a captivating, intriguing, intense and thought-provoking novel. The Genres for this novel are Historical Fiction and Fiction. The timeline for this story is set after World War Two in the 1950s and 1960's when Germany is divided and goes to the past and future when it pertains to the characters or events. The story takes plac...
I listened to this great book through audible and enjoyed it a lot. It takes place on an East German island by the Baltic Sea where Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended, and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat who adores her. But after joining the newly formed secret police, he is drawn deep into its dark mission and becomes a man with some power. Bettina reconnects with a soldier she’d met years b...