Nothing Sung And Nothing Spoken.

 

 

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Berlin, 1938

 
It is the summer before World War II begins, but Charlotte Kraus doesn’t know it yet. All she knows is the zing of electricity she feels every time her best friend, Angelika Haas, grabs her hand. Charlie would follow Geli anywhere—which is how she finds herself at an underground club one Friday night, dancing to contraband American jazz and swing music, suddenly feeling that anythingmight be possible. 

Under the oppressive shadow of the Nazi regime, returning to the club is a risk. But Charlie does, unable to resist the allure of sharing a secret with the girl she can’t stop thinking about, or the thrill of disobeying the Party’s rules. Soon the Swingjugend movement becomes more than a simple escape. It’s a place where Charlie and her friends find acceptance, freedom, and camaraderie among others who are determined not to sit on the sidelines of history. 

Increasingly terrified by the tightening vise of Hitler’s power, Charlie is drawn to larger and larger acts of resistance—even as Geli, the daughter of a senior Party officer, begins to pull away. But resisting the Nazis is a dangerous proposition, and the war will test what Charlie is willing to risk at the expense of her family, her friends, and the girl she loves. 

 

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As everyone aware by now, I’m a big historical fiction fan. It’s the one genre that I read the most of. I have read a lot of historical fiction, Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken is a different spin on WW2, and not what I had expected the story be when I came across it at the public library. This is how I love discovering new books, new authors. When I came across the book while at the library, it was the cover and the title that had my attention and had me wondering what was going on, just based on the cover of the book. I wondered if there was going be a love triangle story, based on the cover of the book, and curious where they were headed, why they look so mysterious. When I started reading Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken the cover and the title both started making so much more sense, it fit the book perfectly. 

Charlie, I liked her from the start, it was impossible to not like her. I did feel sorry for her, it was clear how much she loved Geli, but I don’t think that Geli loved her as much as Charlie did. There were times where I wondered if Geli even cared about Charlie, just the way that she treated Charlie. Geli would ditch Charlie for a guy at club, breaking Charlie’s heart but when Charlie showed up with another girl, get angry with her. I felt that sometimes Geli didn’t treat Charlie fairly. This is the first time where I was rooting for Charlie to end up with someone else, she deserved someone who spend time with her, show her how special she was. Geli wasn’t that girl. 

I wanted to dislike Geli, and I did for most of the book, but there were times that I couldn’t help but love her, and feel sorry for her. It can’t be easy being a daughter of a senior Party officer. Every time that they went dancing, I was afraid that they would get caught, I couldn’t begin to imagine what Geli’s father would do to her if she was caught. That ending wasn’t what I expected to be, and I am still trying to process all those emotions that are going through me. 

This is not a story that will be forgotten. Not long after turning the last page, I was telling my friends and my family about the book. A book that I would highly recommend to any historical fiction fans.