"The Last Year of the War" by Susan Meissner

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Two American born fourteen year old girls, Elise Sontag and Mariko Inoue, meet at an internment camp in Texas during WWII and make an instant connection. The girls are separated when Elise’s family is repatriated back to Germany. A lot of times when I’m starting a book I have a hard time keeping track of who’s who, but each of the characters in this story are developed beautifully so that they’re each unique and easy to remember, even the peripheral characters. I haven’t come across any other novels that delve into the internment camps and I don’t think I ever knew that families were actually traded. I appreciated learning about this unique perspective of the war. While I enjoyed reading it and and wanted to see what would happen, the story moved a bit slowly for me and I didn’t find myself emotionally invested in it. Don't let this deter you though - judging from the other reviews I'm definitely in the minority in that aspect! Thank you to Susan Meissner and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.