Nonfiction read that just blew me away. I learned so much about East Germany, and am just amazed by this family’s resilience throughout the 40 years of separation. I haven’t teared up while reading a book, potentially ever, and reading the reunion towards the end just moved me deeply after reading everything they have been through. I will say this read feels longer because there is a lot of history/facts so sometimes read more like a textbook at times.

while the book isn’t the best written book i have ever read from a technical standpoint the story is so compelling. uniquely, i think it’s that she’s not an author by trade thats makes the story so accessible. it feels like the stories an aunt or grandparent would tell. and it’s because it is: a family saga and the parallel lives they lived separated by physical and ideological distances.

it’s weird to say that i enjoyed reading a book a grief stricken, scary and complicated tome in one’s life but i did. she made her relatives feel relatable yet venerable. as light hearted as a book can be about the cold war.

Written as nonfiction but reads like a novel, very moving!

At 416 pages, this book is an investment.

Following the events in this book, I grew to know and feel for Nina’s family.

Before I read this story, I couldn’t recall the events of the Cold War that I’m sure I learned in middle school history class. I found it to be a great resource for first-hand and second-hand accounts of the war and the heartbreaking things that families had to endure when Germany put up that wall. It was also great that Nina added photographs and quotes throughout the book. Willner also starts each chapter with a moving quote, which I thought was perfect.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is the act of rebellion." -Albert Camus

It’ll be one that I place on my 'tell everyone about it' bookshelf at home. Hopefully, I can get a few friends to borrow it from me so we can chat about it.

Breathtaking. Rich with history and facts from the author's family. Astounding to see how family members lived nearly side by side, separated by the Wall and later, the ocean.

Incredible read, with in-depth accounts of how quickly geo-political changes can take place. This is a family story, a historical archive, and a reminder of how much it takes to preserve democracy in unstable times. Highly recommended.

Everyone should read this book! A personal perspective of life inside a hard line communist country and how families were torn apart. Well written, and well researched. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed reading this non-fiction historical book about a family from East Germany during the Cold War which enlightened me a lot about life on the other side of the iron curtain and events of that time period.  My husband had the opportunity during college while he was living in Germany to make a trip into Eastern Germany, so I had heard a fair amount from him about his experience over the years.  This book helped fill in more, and I appreciated that it recounted one family’s actual experience.  This family was strong and brave through cruel and trying times.  And what incredible women this family has!  In addition to telling her family’s story, Willner did a tremendous amount of research from a variety of sources in addition to gaining information from her family,     I highly recommend this powerful book that reads like fiction, especially for history buffs and people who enjoy books with strong female characters.
My Rating:  4.5 Stars

It was a good book, because even if it was a well known story, it was told from the inside of a "normal family" and it told the struggles to keep "the walls of the family up and to be true to oneself". So even if this is not the first book I read about the DDR, it was probably to most explicative and clear about that period.

È stato un buon libro, perché anche se la storia é nota, sentirla raccontare da una normale famiglia e rendersi conto delle loro quotidiane battaglie per evitare di tradire se stessi e gli altri é stato molto affascinante. Quindi anche se non era proprio il primo libro che leggevo sulla DDR, é sicuramente quello che mi ha fornito piú informazioni sul periodo.