Elise Sontag is a German –American teenager born in the United States to parents who retained their German citizenship and whose father was a chemical engineer in an American company in the United States. She meets her best friend Mariko Inoue, a Japanese- American teenager born to parents with U.S. citizenship. They meet in an internment camp during the last year of World War II, where their families are confined because they are suspected of passing information to their respective countries. How they cope with this confinement and how their friendship develops is told by Elise in flashback format. They lose touch after the war and Elise now a woman in her 80’s decides to try to find her long lost friend before Alzheimer’s disease takes her mind completely away. She finds a connection to Mariko in San Francisco and sneaks away from her wonderful niece and nephew and her privileged life to accomplish her last goal. It is a beautiful story of love, friendship and endurance; despite the many setbacks they experience. Don’t miss this story; it is truly a treasure.

This heart-wrenching new novel by Susan Meissner tells of the story of two American born teen-age girls, who along with their families, are forced in to Crystal City a WWI internment camp in Texas. Elise Sontag from Davenport, Iowa is the daughter of German nationals, while Mariko Inoue’s parents are from Japan though she was born and raised in Los Angeles. Trying to survive the brutal Texan heat and the harsh realities of being wrenched from the lives and forced into confinement, the two girls form a close bond despite their different backgrounds. Both families are eventually repatriated, Elise to Germany and Mariko to Japan, despite the war still raging around the world. The novel than turns to Elisa’s life in a country she has never known, her return to American with the aid of a GI stationed in Germany and her efforts to build a new life for herself in a country that had turned their back to her. Though she loses touch with Mariko, we find during the chapters that deal with the current day, Elise, now an 81-year-old widow, uses the internet to track her friend down, and finally try to find the closure she has always needed.

This was an excellently researched and compelling story. The story of the Germans and Italians sent to the internment camps is a new approach and many may not be aware of the forced repatriation to a Germany still being bombed by the Allies. There are many themes addressed in the beautifully written novel: themes of friendship, family, bravery, identity; as well as a new telling of a low point in American history and the treatment of our fellow human beings.

Meissner perfectly blends fact with fiction, creating sympathetic characters and a strong sense of time and place. Whether you are a fan of Meissner other work, an historical fiction fan or a literary fiction fan, please pick this one up and share it! This will be in high demand at libraries and with book clubs.

I liked this book. It kept me turning pages, and at no point did I get bogged down.

The story is told in the first person by Elise, a young girl born in Iowa to German parents who had every intention of becoming American citizens. The fact that they had not done so creates problems for the family during World War II, and they end up being sent to an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas. There Elise befriends Mariko, a Japanese girl whose family was sent to the same camp from Los Angeles. They become best friends for the months they both lived there, but were separated when both families were repatriated to their respective countries of origin.

Elise is bereft in war-torn Germany, a country she’s never seen and where she feels like an outsider. She lives to hear from Mariko, whose letters are few and far between. The fact that they had such a close bond in a short time was, I think, realistic in light of the fact that they shared in the misery of the internment camp, where their friendship was the only bright spot in their lives. (I had known about Japanese internment camps but had not realized there were some Germans interned as well.)

The postwar years and what happens to Elise and how the story wraps up was very well done, in my opinion. No spoilers here.

I received this book from the publisher via netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

This is a compelling coming of age story that is unlike most, in that the main character in this story grows up in horrible circumstances—first at an internment camp toward the end of WWII and then in war torn Germany when her family was repatriated. The author paints a very realistic picture of what life was like for Elise in both places, with descriptions that were vivid, sad, and sometimes filled with terror. I received an advance review copy of this book.

I'm drawn to novels about WWII, especially the events taking place in the United States during that time. I believe the details of Japanese Internment is little known, and find that I am drawn to novels that can bring to light the events that were taking place not only to Japanese Americans, but to German Americans as well. Susan Meissner weaves a beautiful story. I was drawn to the switching time periods. I loved falling back into time with this story.

Having read two other books by this author (Secrets of a Charmed Life, As Bright as Heaven), I was really looking forward to reading this book. I love how she weaves world history into her stories and as part of the characters involved. This book is about a young girl in 1943, whose parents came to the U.S. from Germany and are suspected of being Nazi sympathizers.
I learned a lot of the family internment camp that housed 3000 people in Crystal City, TX. I had never heard of it until reading about it in this book. The treatment of these families was very eye-opening and was written so well.
While the majority of the book was very thorough and detailed, I felt the last few chapters were very rushed so that the story could be wrapped up quickly. I knew the ending was inevitable, but I wanted a little more substance.

In this bittersweet work of historical fiction, Elise, now an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's recalls the days she and her family were forced to relocate first into a camp and then later sent back to Germany during the final year of the war. The only thing that made her time in the camp bearable was being reunited with her father, and the brief friendship she shared with another girl who was also forced to live in the camp. After the girls are separated they vow to one day reunite back in the states when they turn 18. Sadly they fell out of touch but Elise never forgot her friend. As both time and her memories are escaping from Elise, she travels alone in an attempt to reconnect with her long lost friend before it's too late.

From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II.
Susan Meissner never fails to move me to tears in her books. She writes the most beautiful dialogue. I love a war genre novel that teaches me something new about that time period as this one did. I really knew very little about the interment camps and especially the German Americans that were affected. Beautifully written and moving. Heartbreaking at times and one you will definitely not forget. 5 stars definitely.

This book was excellent. It was a captivating story spanning years and different locations. My heart ached for all Elise had to go through. It was also sad to think about those history repeats itself and we never learn.

Susan Meissner does it again. There are so many books in the last couple years that take place during WWII. It's almost to the point where I think "not another one". But Ms. Meissner approaches it from a completely different view. I knew almost nothing about the internment camps for Japanese and German Americans and immigrants. In fact, I knew that the Japanese had been placed in such camps but had no idea that Germans were as well.

Although this story is about more than the internment camp that Elise (a German American) and her family are placed into. It is a story about the endurance of family and friendship under the worst of times.

I have yet to be disappointed in one of her books. This one is no different. A beautiful story.

A friendship made in an internment camp during WWII that lasted only eighteen months, but bonds and memories that lasted a lifetime.

Elise and Mariko met during WWII while attending school in an internment camp for Japanese and German Americans.

We follow both girls through their eighteen months in the camp as well as after even though the friends never saw each other again until they were older adults. They tried to connect with each other, but they never were able to.

At this time in their lives, Elise was suffering from dementia, and she found out Mariko was dying from stage four breast cancer.

Even though Elise had trouble remembering things, she remembered enough to find Mariko, to get on a plane, and to find her before they both were no longer alive.

THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR is a marvelous history lesson and a testament to enduring friendship and learning lessons and making decisions.

The subject matter wasn't light, but it was wonderful learning more about this time in history. I actually wasn't aware of all that happened. It is very obvious that Ms. Meissner did extensive research and perfectly fit the facts into her book.

If you enjoy historical fiction and Ms. Meissner's books, you will want to make room on your bookshelf for THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR.

As all of her books, the beautiful flow of Ms. Meissner's writing and her attention to detail make the book a treat to read. 5/5

This book was given to me as an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Release date: 3/19/19
Rating: 4/5 stars
Genre: Historical fiction
Features: WWII, internment camps, strong families, friendship, finding identity, dealing with cultural racism, Alzheimer's disease
Quotes:

"There were two kinds of mirrors. There was the kind you looked into to see what you looked like, and then there was the kind you looked into and saw what other people thought you looked like."

"Don't lose sight of who you are . . . Don't give into anger and bitterness . . . Sometimes it's not about right and wrong but now and later. Right now, we are having to put up with a difficult situation that we don't deserve, and it's not right. But later, when the war is over, we'll remember that we didn't let it break us."

"Maybe being brave is different than being unafraid. If you're not afraid, what is there to be brave about?"


This book has so many excellent quotes about identity and dealing with hardships, but I'll refrain from posting them all here and just tell you to read the book and discover them yourself. I was so thrilled to be given access to this book (thank you, NetGalley!) since I really enjoyed reading Meissner's book last year, As Bright as Heaven. I love how both of these books by Meissner shed light on a historical event that sadly I knew little about. For this book, I was surprised to discover that many Germans in America were deported to internment camps during WWII. I knew about the Japanese, but I had never known that the same thing happened to Germans, many who had been in America for decades.

I loved getting to see WWII from the perspective of Elise and her German family. Her father, unjustly accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, remains strong and caring for his family through all the trials they endure: the internment camp, repatriation to Germany, and surviving the war in Germany. He is a rock. It's amazing what many of the German citizens experienced back in Germany, many of whom were not supporters of Hiter or his ideas. They nevertheless experienced the destruction and depravity of war, and many lost their lives simply because they were in towns targeted by Allied forces. I liked how this book, like The Book Thief, gave insight into how the average German citizens lived during the war.

I also loved the friendship between the main character and Mariko, a Japanese girl at the internment camp Elise and her family were sent to. Despite their different cultural backgrounds, they discover that they have many things in common and become fast friends. Of course, I can't tell you what happens to their friendship over the years (the story is narrated by an aging Elise); you'll just have to read it.

Speaking of the story being narrated by an aging Elise, this book gave such a fresh and insightful look at Alzheimer's. The first chapter opens with Elise knowing she has Alzheimer's and wanting to find answers about people in her past before the disease takes away her memories. Meissner, though, personifies this disease expertly and descriptively. Elise names her disease "Agnes" after a girl she knew as a child who had a penchant for stealing: "I can feel Agnes tugging at these thoughts of mine as the jet climbs the sky. She wants them. Like a child who wants handfuls of candy before supper, she wants them." I loved this description!

And lastly, I just loved how this book showed Elise's growth over the decades. From a young American girl in Iowa who German roots unjustly sent to an internment camp, to a teenager in war-torn Germany longing for her American home, and then a young woman in post-war California trying to find her way and identity and romance, this book was excellent.

One of few things I didn't love was how much of her life was left un-examined after she moved back to America at the end of the war. I still give this book a solid 4/5 stars.

The Last Year of the War was very well written. I came away from this book feeling like I watched an interesting documentary containing a different perspective of WWII. I grew up in Missoula, home to Fort Missoula (now called The Fort), and as a result, I have a basic understanding of the local history and internment camps. I was really looking forward to this book giving a deeper glimpse into what day to day life would be like. While I didn’t get that, Meissner did a commendable job with the Sontag family’s repatriation. It is easy to lapse into painting all Germans of the time with the same brush. The German side of Elise’s family’s small acts of defiance made my heartache for the ordinary people caught in the crossfire.

Books that cover a character’s entire lifetime can be difficult to craft. WWII is such a vast topic and this book contains a wealth of information but I still felt like I only received a brief glimpse. I wish we had spent more time with Elise and Mariko in the internment camps before getting to the repatriation. The time they spent together in the internment camp felt a little like a spark notes edition. Elise was heartbroken when they were torn apart but I don’t have any specific moments to reflect the deep connection they had.

I enjoyed the book and will recommend it to others, I just wish I had a chance to watch the “unlikely” friendship between these characters rather than be told. I think I would have rated it higher if I hadn't expected the majority of the book to take place in the internment camp.

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.

4.5 Stars

Thanks #NetGalley and #BerkleyPublishing for a free copy of #TheLastYearoftheWar in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Last Year of the War is a WW11 story told from a unique perspective, and is a heartfelt recounting of two typical teenage girls in America whose parents are immigrants from Germany and Japan. When WW11 breaks out, the two families are sent to an internment camp in Texas and from there repatriated back to their home countries. The girls, Elise and Mariko, meet at the camp and in a short time become best friends. The cruelties of war separate them, cause great hardships for their families, and threaten their friendship.

Susan Meissner, author of As Bright as Heaven, offers her readers solid, well written stories, and The Last Year of the War follows in that tradition.. The writing style in this story is similar to narrative non fiction. In fact, I stopped reading at one point to check the author's note to see if this was a story of a real person. Historical fiction fans will be thrilled with this well researched, fictionalized story that includes an abundance of historical facts and vivid, detailed descriptions. The part of the story after the war years is a bit rushed as a great portion of her life is covered in a brief amount of time.

In addition to the historical setting and events, the story includes thoughtful themes of family, friendship, loyalty, bravery, determination, sacrifice, commitment, and the cruelties of war. Especially poignant for me, is the story of Elise's father and his ongoing and determined struggle to do the right thing for his family and to make the best decisions to keep them safe. Who could have predicted the dire and heart breaking outcomes to his best intentions. I think this resonates with every parent....we hope we're making the right decisions for our family but only the future reveals the truth.

Elise is our feisty and independent main character and we follow her life from a young girl to her senior adult years. We learn how she survives the last year of the war and holds tight to dreams for a bright future. She becomes real to us as we root for her and feels like a friend by story's end.

Issues of war, immigration, racism, deportation, and wrongful treatment are prevalent in the story and we are aware of the author's viewpoints as the story unfolds. Favorite quote: "We decide who and what we will love and who and what we will hate, We decide what we will do with the love and hate. Every day we decide. It was this that revealed who we were, not the color of our flesh or the shape of our eyes or the language we spoke."

Sometimes it's interesting when girls in the 40s reflect the thinking of girls in 2018. There is one instance in the story of this when the young girls decide that the heroine in their pretend story doesn't need to be rescued by anyone....she can rescue herself. Even though the girls are able to articulate this idea, they find themselves in some situations throughout their actual lives where they didn't rescue themselves. This would be an interesting book club discussion!

The Last Year of the War is highly recommended for fans of Susan Meissner's work, for readers who appreciate well written historical fiction, and for those who enjoy a compelling story of a strong and independent girl. It's also a book that would be suitable for YA readers. In addition, I think this would make an excellent selection for book club because of many discussion possibilities. For readers who are concerned about reading stories that include the horrors of WW11, I can reassure you that this is a mild read. I hope you'll pick it up when it releases in March and that you will enjoy it as much as I did!

The strength of The Last Year of the War rests in its portrayal of the fate of Japanese and German origin families during WWII. Aside from Monica Hesse's The War Outside (a YA book) and a few nonfiction treatments, the intern camp in Crystal City, TX , the focus of the first part of the book, largely has gone unknown to current generations of Americans. Meissner does a nice job of bringing readers into the camp and helping them to understand its many indignities. This is particularly timely given the current immigration situation on our southwestern border. We clearly have not learned from the past. As a novel, however, I think The Last Year of the War is more for young than mature adults. In many ways it reminds me of a generic Hallmark movie: there are hardships, but the reader or viewer never feels them deeply and the ending is predictable. Perhaps because of its narrative style, we never seem to penetrate its characters or its setting; it is merely a story - not a bad story - but just a story nonetheless. Relationships are not complex, motivations are described thinly at best, and emotions are held in check. I found the ending to be quite unsatisfactory. Were it not for its educational role, I would have given The Last Year of the War one fewer star.

As always, Susan Meissner dives deep into her subject and takes us all along. German-American Elise Sontag and Japanese-American Mariko Inoue become best friends in the most unlikely of places - an internment camp in Texas. Their friendship is forged in the fires of WWII and it’s a bond the girls are sure will last forever. But when Elise’s family is repatriated to Germany and Mariko’s family ends up back in Japan, the friends’ communication is severed. Why did the letters stop? And is it ever too late to rekindle a friendship?

This dual-era novel takes us from the US to Germany and back to the US again as Elise struggles to find a place where she belongs. Above all else, it’s a story of forgiveness that will have you calling friends from your past to reconnect.

On so many levels this book is quite current, even though it is historical fiction. I kept thinking about how these things are happening today, in 2019, and it's quite scary. Iowa teen Elise Sontag was just another 14 year old girl until WWII hit and the U.S. government started looking more closely at the lives of German Americans. Elise's parents had not filed for citizenship even though they had emigrated many years before.. They had just been busy,working, living their life and the American Dream. When Otto Sontag gets accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, his family is rounded up and sent to an internment camp at Crystal City Texas. There Elise is befriended by Mariko Inoue, a Japanese American. Her family has been sent to Texas from Los Angeles as were many Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Life in the camp is hard. It contains its own prejudices, injustices, and unfair rules as found outside its fence, but Elise and Mariko's friendship blossoms despite the harshness of the place and time. When Elise's family is forced to be repatriated back to Germany, she and Mariko lose touch. Even more hard times befall the Sontags as they forced into the thick of the war raging in Germany. The story also contains a contemporary thread, Elise as an old woman recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's (Agnes as she refers to it!) and she's decided she wants to find out what happened to Mariko. Will it be too late for Elise and Mariko? You must read this bittersweet tale to find out. Thank you to the author for the review copy. All opinions are completely my own. #NetGalley #TheLastYearoftheWar

Not many books have been written about the Internment Camps in the United States during World War II. We were scared then, threatened on our own soil from foreign governments, we panicked. Now, perhaps, we are somewhat embarrassed.
Not only were Japanese-Americans, but also Germans, some Italians, Koreans, and a few Chinese, anyone who immigrated within the last 10-20 years that came from a country we were at war with, were sent to a camp.
This is a fictionalized account of a German-American family who are sent to an internment camp, repatriated to Germany during the last year and a half of the war, through no fault of their own. The parents, although German-born, had been in the US for two decades. The father was a scientist and worked as a chemist for a US company. His wife was the mother of their two American-born children: Elise, fourteen years then, in 1943, and her brother Max, 9 years old. Both children spoke only English, loved their school and neighborhood in Iowa, when uprooted and forced to leave all they had ever known, and sent to live in an internment camp with thousands of others, in Crystal City, Texas. On that day, the family lost everything they owed, their house, everything in it, and all the money their parents had saved. They were allowed to take a few possessions, and a suitcase each of clothes.
The story focuses on young Elise who befriends Mariko, a young Japanese girl the same age as Elise, who’s family from Los Angeles, has experienced the same fate. They become fast friends, as young teen girls do, and promise to meet in NYC when they turn eighteen and they are free and independent to choose their future careers. Their naïve, youthful spirit will get them through the hardest years ahead, hoping and wishing to make their promise come true.
Both families are repatriated to the parents’ home countries during the last year of the war, experiencing all the strife, hardships and death that the regular citizens suffer. Elise’s family must not speak English in public or be viewed as the enemy. When the Allies come through their town after Germany surrenders, it’s not the US who get there first, but the French. The French soldiers are particularly angry about how the German soldiers treated their French women when they came through France, and they’re intent on retribution. Elise is now 16 years old, so is forced to stay inside their apartment for fear of her safety. She has a frightening encounter which she escapes, but never tells her parents. She vows to return to the US as soon as she turns eighteen, no matter what.
The US finally come through and take over releasing the French. Elise and her family, particularly her father are able to secure jobs helping the US to establish locations for US bases that are still there today, notably one in the book, in Stuggart, Germany. Elise’s story is inspiring and is told with alternating chapters of present and past, as Elise matures during the war, through her adult life, always seeking to find Mariko.
This is a must-read story, and if you enjoy historical fiction, I recommend it. I particularly appreciate the topics Susan Meissner researches that help us learn more about our past; such as her last book about the Spanish Flu in 1917-8; and now this book about the Internment Camps of WWII. Please continue Ms. Meissner, bring us more!

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley Publishers, and Susan Meissner

As soon as I found out that Ms. Meissner had a new novel coming out, I was very excited to receive an arc to review. I’ve been looking forward to this one. I’m sorry to say that I was disappointed.

This is a 3* mainly because I learned some history, liked the last ¼ of the book but then didn’t like the very ending :( does that make any sense to you. I think part of the strength of As Bright As Heaven was definitely in it’s well described characters and of course the Spanish flu epidemic and mystery surrounding the baby, all of those things were "action" for me. There was so much that happened to the characters and I also felt that they “grew” as a family throughout the novel.

This book was such a slow starter that I almost put is aside for a while, it dragged with very little going on with the characters, just some interaction at the Camp and of course her meeting with Meriko. I was at 50% on my Kindle before there was even anything that was keeping me reading. I did have some knowledge of German Americans being interned during the way, partially because I live in a suburb of Milwaukee which had a very large German population, especially during that time period. This was also mentioned in another book I read about internment camps.

This book finally kicked in for me when they were sent to Germany and I really enjoyed the last 1/4 of the book. I wish so much that there had been this level of emotion in the rest of the book.

I don’t want to give away any of the interesting parts of the book because I know readers will be looking forward to this but I will say that when she came back to the US I started to feel as though I understood more of Elise’s character. I cared more for her in that little part of the book than I had up until that time. Even to the end though I didn't feel the strong force of Elise and Mariko’s relationship, which initially I thought was the driving force of the book. I never felt a deep connection to Elise or any of the characters really, they all felt rather flat to me. By the end of the book I felt that the war itself was the strongest “character” in my opinion.

There are many reviewers who loved this book but I can’t really recommend it and I feel badly for that. Ms. Meissner is a wonderful author and I will look forward to her future novels.

I received an ARC of this novel through NetGalley.

Will post to Amazon upon publication