Book Review: THE GIRL BEHIND THE WALL by Mandy Robotham

 

Title: THE GIRL BEHIND THE WALL

Author:  Mandy Robotham

Read: November 2021

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

 

Book Description:

 

A city divided.
When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta.

Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.

When Jutta finds a hidden way through the wall, the twins are reunited. But the Stasi have eyes everywhere, and soon Karin is faced with a terrible decision: to flee to the West and be with her sister, or sacrifice it all to follow her heart?

What attracted me to this book:

 

Having grown up in Europe with the spectre of the divide between East and West very real to us (my grandparents lived near the then Czechoslovakian border, with barbed wire and a minefield) I was very drawn to the premise of this book. Robotham does well to explain some of the political wheeling and dealing that took place around the construction of the Berlin wall, and the impact it had on a city divided.

My musings:

 

Jutta and Karin, two young and vibrant Berliners, made for enigmatic protagonists to take us on this journey and let us catch a glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens affected by this dark point in history. By switching POV between both sisters, we got to see alternative viewpoints that ultimately led to each sister’s fate. With a heavy emphasis on the sisters, some of the more peripheral characters missed out on character development, which made me question some of their decision making processes.

 

As with any historical fiction, it is called “fiction” for a reason, and some suspension of disbelief was necessary here. I would have liked to see more tension, because even as a child I felt the fear people experienced when the Stasi were mentioned. Despite a few hints at the dangers the sisters faced, I didn’t get this sense of utter terror when they faced being caught. I also travelled to East Germany two years after the wall came down, and the bleakness and despair was still palpable in many places, and the contrast between East and West obvious in the drabness of the buildings, the dire state of the roads and smaller, less obvious things that struck us, like the “holiday camp” near a polluted lake that was totally surrounded by barbed wire. I would have liked to get this sense of entrapment and hopelessness from Karin, who would have experienced it firsthand.

 

This made the story a light reading experience rather than one that packed a punch, which seemed like an opportunity missed to me – but then perhaps this is what the majority of HF readers prefer these days? I see that it has become a trend to steer towards romanticising WWII for the sake of fiction, and I’m not a fan. There was so much potential here to make this a tense, heart pounding story of two sisters divided by a wall, but only ever skimmed the surface. For this very reason, a few elements were implausible given the control and the reach the Stasi had at the time, and their ruthlessness in pursuing anyone they deemed an enemy of the state, plus their friends and families. I’m trying not to give too much away here, but Jutta’s repeated exploits would have been discovered very early on in real life, especially considering the risks she took. Okay, I hear you: “It’s fiction!” you say, and as such it was a light, enjoyable read with the background of a historical era that is fascinating and made for much pondering. 

 

Summary:

 

THE GIRL BEHIND THE WALL  will appeal to readers who enjoy a lighter brand of historical fiction that is hopeful and uplifting rather than delving into the darker themes that defined the era. Postwar Germany is a time in history that is not often covered in HF and made a nice change from the multitude of WWII novels that have hit the shelves lately. If you are a reader who prefers a heavier read, then I suggest reading CONFESSION WITH BLUE HORSES by Sophie Hardach, which doesn’t shy away from exploring the more sinister side of life in the GDR.