Interesting subject matter and setting, quite dull execution. I was left wanting a lot more. It's like it made me want to go read and watch and listen to more stuff, but it didn't actually satisfy any curiosity or itches by itself.

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin is most definitely dazzling--Kip Wilson at her best. With plenty of fiction hovering around World War II and relations in Europe, there are fewer that put the years preceding the war in the spotlight, particularly in young adult fiction. The focus is not on the fighting or the horrors, but the rising tensions and hatred that slowly spreads inside Germany and beyond.
The community Hilde finds at Cafe Lila is a group that not only hides in plain sight during this point in history, but in some current states as well. I am certain many teens will see themselves in these characters who simply want to be themselves and do the best they can while the country crumbles around them. Hilde even comes to realize her Aryan privileges, due to her outward appearance, and tries to use it for the good of her found family.
I recommend this book to any fan of historical fiction, and those looking for the LGBTQIA+ people who have always been there.

This book was truly beautiful. This time period (and topic) is super under-explored and it was fascinating! I really really loved this book and can't wait to recommend it to my kids who love LGBT fiction and history.

3.5 stars

While hitting the surface and being very tentative, respectful and insightful about the rise of Nazis in Berlin and showing how life was before and why they rose to power, this book was simple.
It is an LGBTQA+ historical book written in a musical style story-telling way. I enjoyed it, though. Usually, I'm not too fond of poetry styled writing. It gave enough emotions and history and exciting parts, love seeing queer history shown like the LGBTQ bars and the underground society, but the story felt like only the surface.

I really do love history that centers LGBTQ+ people - however The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin fell flat for me. The actual historical events were glossed over as though far too familiar to the reader. They seemed to happen to characters who knew these events would happen, and not in the natural shock and unprecedented nature that was 1930s Berlin.

I also found the main character not very compelling and her relationships seemed very one-dimensional. The villains were clear from a mile away - in the tone and descriptors you could guess the plot. Also, the miraculous good luck of this main character, it was just a lol moment when everything just works out for her.

Overall, a quick read that left much to be desired. It read more like middle-grade than YA, and seemed to just gloss over reacting to actual history.

Aspect of Nazi Germany rarely seen. Believable characters and lovely verse. Will definitely recommend this title.

A hopeful love letter to the resilience of the queer community. Full review posted at BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr283584

I can see from reading other’s reviews that I'm in the majority when I say I did not like this novel. I had an extremely hard time staying interested and invested in it due to the combination of its verse format (the entire novel is done is verse) combined with the length. I love briefer stories in verse form, but I’ve never read a book this long done in verse and it became more and more burdensome to read as the boom continued. I need some sort of narrative flow to enjoy a novel this long and there was no flow to be seen. I’m sure that for some it’s a perfectly lovely novel–it just simply wasn’t for me, which is a shame, because I had been looking forward to reading it very much.

Thanks to NetGalley and Clarion Books for early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. As per personal policy, this review will not be posted on any bookseller or social media sites due to its review rating of 3 stars or lower.

One of my most anticipated books of the year and it so deserved the hype. I didn't realise it would be a novel in verse but that just added to the sublime beauty of the tale.

April is National Poetry Month so what better time to read this novel-in-verse by Kip Wilson, author of the excellent White Rose. Like me, Kip has a PhD in German Literature and also seems to have an interest in the Weimar years and its aftermath. After all, how could you write two novels that are this good without some serious interest in this time period?
The story begins in February 1932. Eighteen-year-old Hilde has just aged out of the Catholic orphanage she has lived in since her mother's passing eight years ago, leaving with the clothes on her back, a few possessions, and some Reichsmarks in her pocket. After sleeping a few nights in a park, unable to find a job, Hilde discovers and wanders into a Berlin cabaret called the Café Lila after getting drenched in a rainstorm.

Feeling out of place, but before she can leave, Hilde is stopped by Rosa, a beautiful performer and waitress at the café. Before she knows it, Hilde is waiting tables, serving round after round of drinks to the patrons and, at the end of the night, hired on the spot. Realizing that Hilde has no place to go, Rosa takes her to the home she shares with her Tante Esther.

It doesn't take long for Hilde to realize that Rosa and her aunt are Jewish, that the Café Lila is a queer cabaret, and that she is attracted to Rosa. But, while Hilde quickly finds herself feeling at home in the café, making friends with the other women and working hard waitressing tables, she learns that she is also expected to perform. Although Hilde has a beautiful singing voice and would like to pursue a career in music, she is hesitant to perform at Café Lila.

As Hilde begins to come into her own as a queer woman, and her relationship with Rosa begins to become more mutual, outside in Berlin, things are heating as the political climate changes and Hitler's popularity grows, especially after the runoff election in April 1932. Soon, Brownshirts are everywhere, spreading hate and violence. But when Brownshirt violence comes into Café Lila, will Hilde lose everything she loves and for which she has worked so hard?

I really enjoyed reading The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin. I've read a lot of books that were written and set in those turbulent last days of the Weimar Republic and this book felt like it could have been written by anyone of those authors. The research is so impeccable that Hilde's Berlin became another important character for me, not just a good setting for a novel. Little details like the park Hilde slept in, or walking alone the Kurfürstendamm, the newspapers of the time, and so much more give the story a real sense of authenticity. I even pulled out my 1928 street map of Berlin to follow Hilde's footsteps whenever possible.
The Weimar period is really an interesting study in contrasts. On the one hand, there were those who wanted the conservatism of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, on the other, there was the sense of openness and freedom to be who one really is, and as Hilde tries navigate this new-to-her Berlin, I think that Wilson has absolutely captured that dichotomy, presenting the two differences very realistically.

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin is a poignant novel, taking place between February and August 1932, and written in spare free verse. Each poem adds to an at times broad, at other times personal picture of the dying of Weimar Republic and people's reactions that Wilson has so brilliantly created. Today's readers will most definitely have no trouble relating to Hilde's coming-of-age story, whether or not they are part of the LGTBQ+ community, and given the times we are living in now. Confession: the biggest surprise for me is just who the most dazzling girl in Berlin turned out to be. I wasn't expecting that.

Be sure to read the back matter, which includes the author's inspiration for this novel, an explanation of what is factual and what is fiction, and a glossary of German words and phrases. You might also be interested in checking out the author's blog for a more personal look at her research and a playlist on Spotify.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC

I've read two of Kip Wilson's books, now, and unfortunately, I'm starting to think they're just not for me.

I have a complicated relationship with books written in verse. On the one hand, some of them are absolutely gorgeous, and I absolutely fall in love with them. But on the other hand (and what happens more often), I finish the story and just feel a general sense of indifference. That's what happened here.

Going into The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin, I didn't realize that it wasn't written in prose, so it was a slight shock at first. After I got comfortable reading it, it wasn't bad, per se, it just felt a bit dry.

Because of the shorter format, you don't get to know the side characters as well as you would in a novel, and as someone who typically loves the side characters more than the main characters, it meant I had a bit of trouble truly enjoying this.

Overall, I really don't have that strong of feelings. I think this was an objectively good book, and I love the idea od the plot, but it just wasn't the book for me.

This historical fiction told through poetry details the lives of queer performers at a Berlin night club shortly before the Nazi party took power. The titular character is also Jewish, as are many people we meet along the way, and this book didn't shy away from the brutality of hate.

Kip Wilson creates an engaging story so full of atmosphere and tension in THE MOST DAZZLING GIRL IN BERLIN. It's impressive how rich the world of this story is given that it's told in verse. At first, I found myself wishing this was written in prose so that we had more detail and about a quarter of my way into the story, I realized I didn't need additional words to understand what was happening in the lives of these characters. The effect of the pro-Hitler rallies and the violence toward anyone who appears to veer away from "normal" is quite chilling. This feels like it could be happening today. I look forward to having my writing students read this!

An 18-year-old girl in pre-WWII Germany tries to find a home and a place for herself after leaving an orphanage. She ends up at Cafe Lila, a queer club where waitresses are cabaret singers and people who don't fit societal norms can love openly and be themselves. Hilde finds her new home, a new love, and a new family all while the Nazis are taking over control of a scared and hungry nation.

The story is great, the love story sweet, and the political drama terrifying. The story itself I would give five stars, but I don't think the verse structure did any favors to the story itself. It could be the e-ARC I read messed up the formatting that might otherwise have given the verse more rhythm, but as I read it, it made the story choppy and took away from the quality of the story itself.

Loved this title from Kip Wilson! She’s a talented writer. Writing a novel in verse is no easy feat, and she does so effortlessly.

A lovely, wrenching novel-in-verse that not only brings the past to life, but reminds how much history is so near. As in her earlier novel, White Rose, Kip Wilson's verse jumps from the page, grasping your heart and throat in moments of both beauty and tension.

*Free NetGalley Advanced Reader Copy* I didn’t expect this to be prose-formatted though read like a regular story. The poetic design is impressive how it perfectly encapsulates movement and emotion, but the writing is definitely suited for high schoolers who aren’t after the flowery-ness nor gravity of Anne Frank’s diary. Set in preWWII Germany, I don’t think the semi-simple vernacular is exactly realistic but not glaring. It’s got the slow pace of an old Hollywood picture. The lesbian romance is ever-present though not overblown, though sometimes the MC seems too nonchalant about coming onto/interpreting others as though it’s 2030, not 1930. My fav bit: “Identical dresses discarded, identical nightgowns donned, a chorus of whispers, a symphony of bedsprings, lights out, door closed.”

I wish the book started in the orphanage where all the steamy stuff happened and skipped to her as like a showgirl because all the lead up is tedious. MC a little too self-pitying and we don’t know much about when/how she became an orphan. I’m unsure of her age actually. Upon rereading the description, I see it says 18 but that seems at odds with her childlike attitude, circumstances that should’ve toughened her, and how extra immature/coddled she would be for the era.

There’s just not enough believable or explaining emotions when big betrayals happen. She immediately hugs the person who makes her homeless, there are no visceral thoughts about her kidnapper or why he even is doing such a thing. Even though the MC is always crying, most of the book is physical actions. She doesn’t feel terribly real. Also, for a place as architecturally and fashionably beautiful as Berlin, we get no description even in these should-be super-interesting cabarets. We are just told there are cigarettes and a piano.

The book is at least good in showing how politics are a background thing until they gradually push their way into everyone’s lives. I just always think there are too many similar-looking and -acting girls with plain names to confuse. The MC weirdly has it easy. Goes from orphan to making money just singing and staying in her crushes’ houses straightaway seemingly for free, getting singing deals upon deals when it’s like how did she even train her voice or have place to sing when orphan and why was she never pushed into regular child labor back then if things were so tough? Like you don’t need those things but it’d be a nice contrast and to know when she discovered her own talent.

I also just don’t see very young, rather frivolous women spending so much time rudely shouting about politics in public in this era BEFORE anything with Hitler has even happened. When do they have time or inclination for that, no one side-eyes them? We could have been given actual examples of why this is so pressing at the time, especially in a book for unknowing youths, but we’re not. This is a very hindsight/looking back in 2020 book that doesn’t paint a picture for the era.

This book really blew me away. A story, told in verse, about Hilde, a young woman finding her voice, her people, and real love in early 1930s Berlin, with the rise of Hitler hanging over the city and its people. There's so much joy and pride in the queer community where Hilde finds herself that the club and the characters brilliantly come to life in Wilson's writing. I couldn't put it down!

I liked this a lot more than I expected! Wilson did a great job of making you care about her characters. I do think it was a little difficult to really give enough weight to the experiences of queer and Jewish young adults during this time period in a verse novel as opposed to a prose novel, but that was my only complaint.

Kip Wilson delivers another amazing historical novel in verse. The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin focuses on period in prewar Berlin that you don't often hear about. Beautifully written! I will be commending this to my Teen patrons who enjoy historical fiction.