I think there may have been too many timelines in Wunderland for it to reach it’s full potential as a World War II novel.
I give it credit for not trending toward outright romance in the shadow of war, as a lot of WWII novels do, or focusing on some aspect of the resistance to the Nazis, as many WWII novels do. The author attempted something different with Wunderland in that she focused on women in Nazi Germany and the effects that could have through the subsequent generations.
Unfortunately, it fell flat and a lot of that can be, I think, laid at the doorstep of too many timelines playing out at once and too much switching back and forth. It got confusing and clunky in places.
I wanted to read more about each of the women and every time the next page switched timelines, I couldn’t help but wish we were sticking with the one who’d just been speaking.
Really, the story of Isle and Renate, Ava and Sophie could have been a duology to a trilogy and it would have been good. The subject matter deserved something more given what the author was obviously trying to convey in an under 400 page book that spanned sixty years and four main characters.
⭐⭐⭐
(Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the chance to read this book in exchange for a honest review. I apologize for how long it took.)
Adventures With Words 