2.5 stars. No additional information at this time; my Book Club girlfriends are still reading it.

If the protagonist of this war-time novel had not been a raging female Aryan dwarf trying to fit into a society with a poor tolerance for 'other', I wonder if I would have continued plowing through this unecessarily long epic tale. There were too many charcters to follow and there was so much detailed description (the dog alone!!) that it tended to obscure the story line. The author was able to portray the slow but steady seepage of nazism into the towns people's every day lives (without actually protraying the horror of nazism itself) which made me wonder, at what point could anyone have done anything at all to stop its insidious march forward to its ultimate denoument. Small accomodations only led to larger ones; no accomodations only led to mortal danger. And perhaps that was the author's intent, since she detailed the suffering & the loss of everyone equally...those sent to fight (willingly or not) those left behind and those dispossessed (the Jews) who were simply 'sent away'. There were some elements of magical realism woven into the story that I couldn't fast-forward past quick enough (not my thing) and I felt the novel continued on well past what should have been its natural conclusion. I liked this book well enough but I was ready for it to be over. A truly great book I never want to end.

I'm still basking in the afterglow of finishing this enchanting novel. It took me quite a while to read compared to other novels. Mostly because I found myself wanting to take my time and enjoy the beautiful language in addition to the plot lines. It was a somber read but not depressingly so and my overall emotions upon reflecting on it, are ones of hope and almost comfort. I felt as though my self-identification as 'other' made it easy to feel the emotions that Trudi experienced as 'other.' I loved that the pay-library was the central scene of the novel, with the lives and secrets of the townspeople interwoven around it. While the obvious plot lines of being in Nazi Germany were handled so perfectly to me. Yes, the atrocities were acknowledged, but woven into the stories of the townspeople in such a way I have not experienced before. It felt more real to me than many other novels grappling with the same topic, perhaps because it wasn't the sole focus, but described as a part of everyday life. The multiple plot lines and characters were a bit difficult to keep up with but the author frequently gave enough context clues that you could be reminded of each characters back story. If you were reading this along with other books, you might consider a cheat sheet of names, occupations, family relationships.

Lastly, I would want to thank the author for the ending. I thought I knew the obvious, trite ending I could expect to get, actually had thought of a few predictable ones, and was so pleasantly surprised at the turn that happened instead.

I found this book at a library sale, and ended up buying it because I like the way the first page read. Unlike many of the people who have reviewed this book I loved it from the beginning. Trudi's insight into the world is amazing, and while very mature for her age, with a slight mental leap, completely believable.

Ultimately this is a book about differences. When we begin the story, Trudi and her friend Georg are the outcasts, but as the plot progresses-- as the Nazi's gain more power and WWII begins-- who is and isn't an accepted part of the community continues to morph. What becomes important is how people deal with their relative societal acceptance, as well as how they treat those who have been deemed outcasts. With a satisfyingly ironic ending, it is immensely clear the author hopes this book will challenge our considerations of all those on the the periphery of society.

This was one of the best books I've read this year. It follows Trudi Montag, a little person, from her conception to when she is 36 years old. She lives in Burgdorf, Germany, and is born in the middle of World War I, so she lives through many major historical events. Hegi is able to weave those historical events into the story subtly, without them taking over the narrative. The story focuses on Trudi but also tells the stories of all the other people in the village. Hegi will start out talking about one event and then spin off into stories about the other people involved in the same way you learn things about people when you live in a town and then don't hear about them for a while until something else notable happens to them.
The book was so well-written and Hegi did a great job of sharing Trudi's experiences as a little person in a small town, talking about how peoples' differences set them apart in a place and time when people were shunned for being different and put at extreme risk for sticking out - not so different from how things are now, in some ways.
It was refreshing to read a book that takes place in Germany during the 20th century which didn't start during or right before World War II, because it gave a better sense of what Germans were like before and after the war, and how the Nazi party exploited already-entrenched Anti-Semitism and prejudice to serve their purposes. It is frightening how similar some of the Anti-Semitic rhetoric described in this book is to the anti-LBGTQ rhetoric currently spouted by Republicans in particular but not always pushed back on by others the way it should be. The recent shootings at Club Q and other attacks on queer people are definitely related to all the vitriol spread against queer people, and this book was a good reminder of the connection between attitudes, rhetoric, and violence.
I really enjoyed this book. It was long - over 500 pages - but I was really into it the whole time. The descriptions were beautiful, the characters well-drawn, and the emotions of the main character made you really empathize with her. The story is very sad and parts were heartbreaking. It was a wonderful book to read and I was surprised I had never heard of it before. I'll be looking for the other books in the series.

Not an easy book - in many ways. This book’s main character Trudi, a dwarf, growing up in Germany in the early days of the Nazi development is one of many of the people in that story. This is a story of a town, it’s citizens, it’s reactions not only the Nazism, but to each other.

An interesting read. Trudi was sometimes likeable sometimes not so much. My mom was a child during this time in Germany and has told me about many of the things the author wrote about. I would recommend this book to other reading groups. It has a lot of good discussion points.

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The river was rough and greedy -- not ashamed to demand its rightful share: it strained against the embankment, swallowed rocks and gushed through the tiniest crevices. Though it offered no sheltered bays, Trudi would ride its turbulent waves, dart beneath them in her frog-swim, her heart beating fast as she became the river, claiming what was hers. As the river, she washed through the houses of people without being seen, got into their beds, their souls, as she flushed out their stories and fed on their worries about what she knew and what she might tell. Whenever she became the river, the people matched her power only as a group. Because the river could take on the town, the entire country.

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Trudi Montag is a Zwerg (a dwarf) born in the fictional German village of Burgdorf -- situated just outside Dusseldorf -- right after her father returned from fighting in WWI. After her mother goes crazy and dies before Trudi's fourth birthday, the little girl is raised by her heartbroken (and warbroken) father, and from her perch beside him at the town's pay library, Trudi learns to ferret out people's secrets, becoming the town's gossipmonger, storyteller, and informal historian. It is from this perspective that Trudi watches her neighbours morph from a typical community of friendships and petty jealousies into the kind of us-versus-them mentality that would allow the rise of Nazism and the turning of backs as Jewish neighbours are dragged from their homes in the middle of the night.

Because the subject matter feels so important, and because the author, Ursula Hegi, wrote Stones From the River to confront the silence that she grew up with in post WWII Germany, it's easy to think that this is an important book, but it really didn't work for me. Even with 500 pages, to span the four decades from 1915-1952 -- and to include a large cast of characters -- this narrative felt very rushed, with many long expository passages meant to move the timeline along. This jumping forward in the story didn't really allow me to get to know any of the characters other than Trudi herself, and as a result, there was no slow metamorphosis for those who became Nazis and Nazi sympathisers: the young men of Trudi's generation showed themselves from the beginning to be disdainful of "otherness" (bullying everyone outside the norm, and especially the dwarf Trudi) and the older folks seemed ordinary enough until pulled into fanaticism. The town jumped from normal to crazy to "we don't want to talk about it" and nothing was really explained along the way (which I would have thought to be the point).

Also, I've seen reviewers say that having the lead up to WWII shown through the eyes of a German dwarf is a brilliant way to dispassionately record events from the point of view of an "other", but since this was done already through Oskar's eyes in The Tin Drum, I found it to be a curiously unoriginal concept. (And especially since both dwarf protagonists seem to have quasi-magical powers: the fact that Trudi could see or feel the futures of everyone she met only served to further distance her from me; to make her more "other" than necessary.) As the Nazi presence expanded in Burgdorf, I was conscious of the extra danger that Trudi was in, but even her confrontation with an SS officer was a bit of a letdown:

"Don't you know what can happen to someone like you in our country? You become an experiment…a medical experiment for the almighty profession," he said, and told her of operations performed on twins, on people afflicted with otherness. "Because the rules that used to temper curiosity no longer exist…Some people might even tell you that a Zwerg has no right to live."

This had to be acknowledged at some point, but the fact that Trudi wasn't exposed to any real menace just didn't feel truthful (and especially since she was vocally anti-Nazi). Capable of great love and great hatreds, the character of Trudi was just so unlikeable: she hoards people's secrets and spreads rumours designed to destroy her enemies; she is so greedy for love that she tries to steal affections; and she is so afraid of being disliked or misunderstood for her dwarfism that she pushes people away and then scorns them for abandoning her. That this complicated character is the only one we really get to know didn't add anything to my understanding of the time, and overall, I just feel let down by this book. Again, important subject matter doesn't make for an important work, as easy as it might be to conflate the two.

Absolutely gorgeous, lucid writing.

Stones from the River traces the life of Trudi Montag, a dwarf from a small fictional German town. The book begins just after WW1 and follows her life through WW2. Trudi is not always a likeable character and some situations are uncomfortable; that makes the Trudi and her story real. What I liked the most was the insight into the minds of the German people and how through a mix of fear, propaganda and intimation they became indifferent to Nazi power. A real emotional journey.

"Pedras do Rio" é um livro que pode ser dividido em duas abordagens, que se fundem no final. Num primeiro momento, a narrativa foca na vida de Trudi Montag, uma anã que mora numa pequena cidade na Alemanha, nascida logo após a 1ª Guerra Mundial. Sua infância é muito sofrida, convivendo com o preconceito pela sua diferença e tendo uma mãe com problemas mentais que, num primeiro momento, a rejeita.

Com o passar do tempo, o livro volta sua atenção para as mudanças sociais e políticas que acontecem na Alemanha, com a ascensão do partido nazista. Acompanhamos de perto o engajamento de grande parte das pessoas ao novo regime, principalmente em função das promessas de melhoria econômica, paralelamente ao início da perseguição aos judeus: de início, uma discriminação social, que se amplia para um movimento violento de perseguição e isolamento.

A autora Ursula Hegi aborda a 2ª Guerra Mundial de uma forma diferente da maioria dos livros sobre o tema, uma vez que não acompanha nem os campos de concentração nem o front de guerra. Todo o foco se dá na pequena cidade onde Trudi mora, e o livro vai ano a ano acompanhando o impacto na vida dos moradores, inclusive no pós-Guerra, após a chegada dos americanos, com a ressocialização dos soldados alemães e a difícil volta à normalidade.

Para quem tem curiosidade sobre esse período da História, vale a leitura para entender como se deram as transformações na sociedade alemã nesse período de mais ou menos 30 anos.

Avaliação Final: 7,5/10
Leitura Concluída: 10º livro de 2023
Próxima Leitura: "Um Ano de Milagres" (Geraldine Brooks)

Took a while for me to get into, and I was pretty close to giving up on it, but I'm glad I didn't. I felt like I could relate to Trudi because, like her, I used to attach myself to a single person and then become vengeful when they didn't return my devotion, and then as I learned to accept that every person loves in their own way, I also developed something of a bittersweet affection for all of the people (and their stories) around me, in part because of their flaws. I think Hegi captures the complexity and beauty of relationships perfectly, and it was a well written story.

The ending, however, didn't quite meet my expectations. I don't get why she chose to end it with Georg, who seemed like a fairly unsubstantial character compared to some of the others, and some of those other relationships were also fraught with twisted emotions. It felt like the sort of ending where the author can't quite decide where to end the story and then does a sloppy job because she's not quite satisfied and just wants to get the book out the door ASAP.