A beautiful, moving tribute to the pervasive power of stories: the ones we tell to others or ourselves, the ones we hear, especially the ones we believe. It reveals how we use them to frame our world -help ourselves make sense of it -even offer some control of the way we engage with our own realities.
Aside from the tremendous character development and flawed charm of the protagonist, I found this a terribly courageous look at the roots of how a town, a people and a nation could so succumb to gradualism and to something as unspeakable as the Holocaust. The author never flinches from exposing all of the self-deceptions, excuses, rationalizations, and cowardice, just as she gives us glimpses of how many tried, in every way they knew, to make a difference in changing its course, or saving even just one.
Many passages as carefully layered as this one:

Politics were like history. Only they were happening now. But they were linked to history. Her father had told her about the feudal system, in which people used to get land from lords in return for total allegiance. Like fighting in battles. "We Germans have a history of sacrificing everything for one strong leader," her father had said. "It's our fear of chaos."

And later:

"But I worry about the German attraction for one strong leader, one father figure who makes you obey, who is strong enough to make you obey....Who tells you 'This is the right thing to do.' I worry about the belief that our strength is a military strength."

All of this plays out through the years and years of simple life in a simple small town that showcases in quietly intimate ways how ordinary people absorb, and pass through such a blight of human history.
We make choices of how to view our world. Above all else, I feel this novel impresses one with the responsibility of those choices

I've had this book on my shelf for years and am glad I finally read it. Stones from the River was a really great book. It's not your typical WWII novel, yet WWII plays a huge part in the story. It is the story of a dwarf, Trudi, and her life, how she always wants to be taller, how she always wants to fit in. It tells of her mother dying in an asylum right before she turns four, and the life she lives with her dad. It is the story of her hardships and the hardships of her friends as the war progresses. There is a lot going on in the story, and it isn't always a quick read, but it was very good and compelling. This completes my TBR 12 for 2019.

Although there was not really a story going on, there were quite some interesting chapters and touching things. Overall it was not really a book that keeps you willing to read on. More like a movie in which there is no tension at all.

A good read but not a quick read. This novel recounts the first 3 1/2 decades of the life of Trudi Montag, a female dwarf Most of it is stream of consciousness of Trudi's thoughts - her hopes, her fears, her joys, her tears - but it also tells the story of Burgdorf, her village on the banks of the Rhine. It covers the period from towards the end of the 1st World War until partway through the 50s, so reflects a German point of view of the Depression, the rise of Hitlerism and the effects of the 2nd World War. It is very interesting to read these events from a German perspective, and it also gives a heart-rending understanding of how a dwarf wants so much to be able to grow to a normal size. I look forward to reading the next book in the Burgdorf cycle.

Definitely one of those books that I like more now that I’m done reading it. I enjoyed how this was both a story about the main character - Trudi - coming to understand herself, and a story of her town as she grappled with her understanding of it. I also found the historical perspective really interesting. So often, I think, WWII is used as a backdrop for stories without ever really getting at the heart of the matter: how, and why, something like Nazi Germany and the Holocaust could have ever happened. It’s a thousand small things that have the power to build to such a great evil, and this book does not flinch from such small things - the parts of humanity, and of ourselves, that we don’t want to look at.

All of this kept me engaged enough to keep reading even in parts that dragged, or in the first hundred pages or so when I could not for the life of me keep track of which Herr or Frau was who, but the book still felt quite long (like this review is becoming). So, I am glad to have read it, but glad to be done, too. Recommended for anyone who likes their historical fiction to be both sprawling and thoughtful.

This book was extremely slow moving. The first 100-150ish pages were a complete drag and I struggled to get through them..after that the book picked up pace SOME, but overall it was still a very slow moving book that I think, if condensed, could have been much better. There were very few parts that kept me enthralled. It was such a good storyline and setting, but many of the details seemed unnecessary and there were SO many characters to keep up with, many of whom were irrelevant. I feel if I read this a second time further down the road, I may get more out of it, but that won't be anytime soon.

This is one of my favorite books ever. I’ve read at least 3 times and plan to read it again. I think it was my first exposure to WWII told from a civilian German point of view. I can’t begin to express how much I learned from it. This author is gifted in story telling!

This book brought home what it was like to live in World War II era Germany and gave me new understanding of the Nazi takeover and what it meant for German residents. It was also somewhat spooky in that regard, that some people were so wholeheartedly caught up in the militaristic regime, and that it was not safe for others to speak out. It made me think of that line from poetry, what we at first abhor we first come to tolerate, and then embrace. Excellent book.

Wow. Ursula Hegi's novels are always a treat. Each character is full of depth and emotion.

I was surprised at how much I liked this book since, up until reading this my main genre was mystery and I often found bookclub choices not to my taste. However, from the start, I was intrigued by Trudi, the main character, and because I really sympathized with her, I was compelled by her story.

3 1/2 stars

I have had this book for over a year, starting the hard copy a few times and always putting it back down again. I am getting very finicky about reading books where the typeset was chosen by a sadist with the intention of torturing the reader.

So when I got the digital copy at last I was very excited, and I think my expectations were perhaps a bit too high.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Trudie, a Zwerg born just after WW1 in a small fictional town of Burgdorf. My heart went out to her in her attempts to grow by hanging off doorframes till her arms ached, wrapping her head in scarves to please just make it stop growing. Her otherness, even in a small sheltered community, made her stand out and suffer injustices while growing up.

The one element I really enjoyed was the mystery of the secret benefactor, who would leave gifts for unsuspecting residents, giving them exactly what they most need at the right time. I was a bit disappointed when the identity of this benefactor was revealed.

And no matter how many WW2 books I read I always learn something new.

I never knew that the Nazi government had monetary incentives to spur on child production in Germany. Offering subsidies to parents starting with child 3 and doubling with each additional child after that. I also didn’t know that like with the rest of Europe Germany too had projects to remove their children from cities that are likely to be bombed, and relocate them to the countryside where it would be safer.

I think this is a very important book, showing the impact of the war on a society who are essentially on the wrong side. There are so many books told from the perspective of the victor making it easy to forget that not all Germans were Nazis or Nazi sympathisers.

The reason why I didnt give this a full 4 stars is that it felt as if the story seemed to meander at times, particularly at the beginning and the end of the book, which made the overall experience a little anti-climactic. Ultimately this is not a book about dramatic heroism, but rather small acts of courage and defiance.

If you like books with a slower pace, getting to know the ins and outs of a small community and a plotline that may not promise fireworks but does ultimately deliver an impact then I can happily recommend this to you.

On a side note: Without ever mentioning the word Berlin or Wall somehow the book reminded me that at no point have I ever read about the Berlin Wall so I have earmarked A Night Divided and Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall but welcome any other suggestions.

I've got a German friend who every time the war is mentioned suffers a rush of blood to her face and looks physically pained. She continually makes me realise what a struggle it is for sensitive, generous spirited Germans to come to terms with what happened under the Nazis. And this despite one of her great grandfathers taking part in the coup against Hitler and being hanged. I mention this because the author of this novel is German and this novel, to some extent, is an attempt at atonement. Unfortunately, not a very good one in my eyes.

It begins in 1915 in an invented German town. The husband has been wounded in the war; the wife is a deeply troubled soul and is horrified when she realises she has given birth to a dwarf child, Trudie. For a while these three characters are compelling. The unrelenting challenges to her self-esteem Trudie faces are well done and we don't blame her for becoming somewhat mean spirited towards the residents of the town. Later in the novel she will work in the library where she collects damning stories about her fellow inhabitants. But we're told this; never shown it and as a sub plot it never meshed into the narrative drive. Unfortunately, this is anything but a tightly focused novel and the narrative soon begins wandering far and wide. Innumerable other characters are introduced, none of them particularly memorable and the book begins to take the obese form of a soap opera. It also wanders towards magical realism at times but then pulls back. There are also dream sequences and the temptation to start skimming took hold before I reached the 100-page mark.

When the Nazis take power the book becomes interesting for troubling reasons. It's essentially a rather benign depiction of everyday Germans under Nazi rule. Kristallnacht is quickly brushed over in Hegi's invented German town. To be honest, I felt there was a catastrophic failure of imagination on Hegi's part to evoke German life under Nazi rule. I couldn't help drawing parallels with the infinitely superior Alone in Berlin, also written by a German but a German who didn't shy away from dramatizing the ensuing vile predatory behaviour when a state encourages its members to vent everything most base in their nature. Even from the point of view of cranking up dramatic tension it's odd Hegi chose not to include a single hateful Nazi in her narrative. The murder of the Jews is never mentioned in this novel. They have "disappeared" as if they might simply be living someone else. Towards the end of the novel Hegi even tells us a few Jews returned to her invented town. The most passionate display of narrative outrage is at the bombing of Dresden. It's as if she uses the dwarf theme to act as a kind of smokescreen to hide the outrages inflicted on the Jews. The cruelties Trudie goes through are not peculiar to Nazi Germany; they would occur in any society. If this book were the only information we had about Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany wouldn't stand out as being significantly more evil than many other political regimes in world history.

But this isn't the reason I didn't like this novel. It was the continual snowstorms of incidental detail, the repetitive blundering up blind alleys and the unrelenting introduction of gratuitous characters which prevented me from connecting with this book which is probably twice as long as it needs to be. A buddy read with Elyse. (It took me about a month longer to read than it did Elyse!)