The Last Year of the War
Books | Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / World War II
4
(87)
Susan Meissner
From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II. In 1943, Elise Sontag is a typical American teenager from Iowa—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. But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her. The Last Year of the War tells a little-known story of World War II with great resonance for our own times and challenges the very notion of who we are when who we’ve always been is called into question.
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Author
Susan Meissner
Pages
416
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2020-04-07
ISBN
0451492161 9780451492166
Community ReviewsSee all
"This wasn’t my favorite WWII novel, but it was an excellent historical fiction novel. I picked this up to learn a new perspective on a situation I knew about (interment camps within the US during the early 1940s), but didn’t realize had even more complexity (such as a camp practically on the Texas border that housed German families as well, many of which we repatriated). I think perspective is one of the most powerful things we can change, and I’m glad I sought this story out.<br/><br/>Now, I will say I felt baited and switched a bit, but the story progressed nicely, and I liked Elise as our narrator. It was a bit slow in parts but overall I would definitely recommend it and I’m eager to check out more books by the author!"
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Allie Peduto
"Learning about history while being entertained…what could be better?"
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Whimsy wonky
"I’ve also read ‘as bright as heaven’ -I liked that one as well! It’s set during the Spanish flu pandemic -not sure what type of read you’re looking for but I just wanted to point that out. For some people it might be overload with our current situation. Hope that helps!"
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Angela McClellan