Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Ringo does it again with another excellent chapter in the BTR series. Ringo's strength is combining a zombie apocalypse with really good military tactics and leadership. If you're burned out on Walking Dead type antics where characters 6ISH YEARS INTO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE ALL OF A SUDDEN REALIZE THAT THE WORLD HAS ENDED AND BAD STUFF HAPPENS...then this is a saving grace entry into the genre. Ringo is still able to keep the series fresh and fun and unloads a few good twists. Maybe the most unbelievable part is that there doesn't seem to be too many terrible characters this far into the plague. However, because sci-fi is so awesome, the outcome Ringo has come up with is not outside the realm of possibility - which makes it great sci-fi. If you liked the others in the series, this one will be just as great and the next one will be consumed as well. Final Grade - A- ( )

I found this account to be both fascinating and moving. It grapples head-on with the unease of being part of a population coming to terms with acknowledging past abuses on a national scale, the topic of reparation and whether that can ever be enough, and the immediacy of identity dysphoria that inherited shame creates. This is a topic that I expect/hope to see more of in the future -- I think America has a lot of buried topics that we need to unearth and confront, and I admire this book as a sort of personal toolkit for examining difficult topics without flinching away. I think this kind of personal examination is the best possible way forward.

It's also a fabulous nonfiction graphic novel, with layers of visuals that add significantly to the context of the narrative. ( )

“Because there was no story, there was no history.” That line from Nora Krug has stayed with me since I finished this delightful book. We all yearn to know and understand both the history and story of our families. At times, there are difficult aspects to our family’s story. This book does a great job—through reflections and beautiful visuals—of describing one person’s efforts to both understand and reconcile the history of her own family who lived in Germany during WWII and the rise of the Nazis. The way the author describes her efforts to do so is applicable to our own need to address the difficulties of our past—as individuals, nations, even religious groups. Definitely recommend. ( )

A history of a family in Nazi Germany in graphic form. It addresses the guilt of the German nation after World War 2 as the author, living in the USA, seeks to discover more about her family and their allegiances. It is sensitive, touching and tense. Different styles and format are used, e.g. 'From the scrapbook of a memory archivist' that shows ephemera acquired over the years in flea markets and the like, and Things German and their symbolism. ( )

Started yesterday, finished this morning: this is the first adult picture book I've wanted to read, and as anticipated, I couldn't put it down.

I suppose you could shelve this in some rather specific way. The 'my grandparents were Nazis' memoir shelf. Or the 'ordinary people in the period 1930-1950 in Nazi Germany' shelf. For me, I'd put it under 'everybody should read this'. It asks all the questions, without coming up with any answers. But keeping those questions on the tip of our collective tongue is vital to stopping such horror in the future. We need an autistic attitude, we have to feel that these things have just happened, and could happen any moment again. I do believe that the reason we are seeing the resurgence of the extreme right now is at least partly because our memory is slipping, too many feel like it's a past that isn't connected to the present. But it is. By blood, by education, by culture, by belief, by greed and by all the bad features of being a human which are after all, the reason why we created society in the first place. To try to hold them in check.

Thank you Nora Krug, for your search for answers. It is your contribution to our never ending discussion about the meaning of life. ( )