Apparently, I’ve been on a bit of a historical fiction kick here lately. I mean, when they also have some queer romance in them, I can’t exactly resist.

Three women over eleven years across Berlin and America will learn the horrors of the Nazis and fight back, each in their own way with books.

I love a historical fiction with queer rep and find it important that we don’t romanticize war. This book doesn’t but also reveals hope in despair and shows that even in the horrors of war, you can always find love. It also explores how people can change their minds and grow as their perspectives change and they gain new info. Yep.. it’s possible, and we’d do well to remember that every once in a while. We’re supposed to change as we learn new things.

Check it out now wherever you get your books.

I was approved for this book just a week or so before the release date and unfortunately was too swamped at the time to get around to reading and reviewing it before the publishing, but here we are! THIS was what I expected and wanted from The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel, which was a huge let down for me. The Librarian of Burned Books had so much great character development through it's usage of the three main character POV's and use of each characters placement at a different point of time in the war. It is written in a way that adds questions to the drama and keeps you guessing. It deals with the usual war drama like loss/grief and betrayal, as well as how easily someone can be swept up in such dangerous and evil politics, but also has angry librarians fighting against censorship and some lovely queer romance. This book really has it all.

Also just feel I should note that a time when we are seeing more and more books being banned in schools, writing like this that reinforces our drive to fight against censorship is so important. READ BANNED BOOKS.

Here is a favorite quote of mine from the book:
"Burning books about things you do not like or understand does not mean those things no longer exist."

I really enjoyed this and wish I had gotten around to it a tad sooner, but at least this means it's out NOW and you can check it out immediately.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Publishing for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren't they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed."- Brianna Labuskes

This book is in my top 5 reads of 2023. This is my first book by Labuskes and she is an absolute wordsmith. There were so many amazing quotes. I couldn't write them all down because it would have started to dance on the line of plagiarism LOL!

The Librarian of Burned Books follows 3 different women at different stages of WWII. American author, Althea who is on a German cultural exchange program and is taken under the Nazi's wing. Hannah who thought she had escaped from Nazi Germany to Paris just to discover the City of Lights isn't what she seems. And Vivian, a war widow, who is waging her own war against a senator. We jump back and forth between all women and while, Viv's story was dimmed by Hannah & Althea, you end up invested in all of their plights.

This story is a love note to books and booklovers. Anyone who is a fan of Kate Quinn will enjoy this as well. Please add this to your TBR! Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for giving me an ARC.

For fans of The Rose Code and The Paris Library, The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.

Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime—the WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as “weapons in the war of ideas”—The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable historical novel, a haunting love story, and a testament to the beauty, power, and goodness of the written word.

Author Brianna Labuskes does a fantastic job with this novel! The characters are brought to life and tackle racism, fascism, censorship, betrayal, courage, sexism, desire, and so much more. All of this is done is a beautiful novel that is extremely well written.

This novel is perfect for those who love books, history and will leave a reader feeling thankful we live in a world with books. You will feel empowered after reading this novel.

Thank you to William Morrow, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this historical novel. . All thoughts and opinions are mine.

A World War II historical fiction novel with a sprinkling of romance.

Brief Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime, a WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as "weapons in the war of ideas", The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable historical novel, a haunting love story, and a testament to the beauty, power, and goodness of the written word.

The story is told from three POVs: Viv, Hannah, and Althea. All told from different years in history. Quickly the three storylines begin to intersect as all three women join forces to fight against censorship.

New York 1944: As the storming of Normandy quickly approaches, Viv has been waging her own war against a powerful senator attempting to censor Armed Service Editions, portable paperbacks sent to millions of soldiers overseas.

Paris 1936: Hannah escaped Berlin for Paris, but quickly finds that she cannot escape anti-Semitism and the Nazi influence she thought she left behind.

Berlin 1933: Following the success of her first novel, Althea receives an invitation to participate in a cultural program in Germany at the start of Hitler’s rule. She quickly meets a group of people who make her question everything she knows about her hosts and herself.

A lot of the topics discussed in this book are relevant to the present day. The final few chapters will bring tears to your eyes and chills down your spine. Breathtaking, beautiful writing.

I originally received an ePUB ARC of this one, but after a few chapters I knew that I needed a physical copy. Students of history and book lovers will enjoy this book!

Special thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow Books (an imprint of Harper Collins) for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I must admit that I’m not overly familiar with the staples of historical fiction as a genre, but I found The Librarian of Burned Books an engaging and relevant to current events regarding censorship and book bans. Unfortunately, because of life as a university student, I was unable to publish this review by the publication date, but The Librarian of Burned Books is out now! Set in Nazi Germany, Paris, and the United States and following the lives of three women, The Librarian of Burned Books feels like a historical warning cry to the citizens of the modern era. Let’s get into it.

This story shines brightly in the dimension of its voices. Althea, Hannah, and Viv are distinct characters who are all placed within distinct times and locations. Althea’s bright naivete in the face of the Nazis is uncomfortable in how accurate it is; Hannah’s caution and paranoia in Paris with the Nazis at her back is tense and feels suspended in a liminal space; and Viv’s desperate fight to stop censorship hits a little too close to home for one like me, queer and living in the South, where every week brings with it more news of book bans and censorship bills.

Each of the characters shone within their own stories, and I found Labuskes’ writing style both engaging and easy to follow, enjoying the way she gave each of the characters their own voice when writing them. At first, I found it a tad difficult to keep up with events, as Hannah and Althea reference each other in their sections, Hannah’s set three years after Althea’s, which causes some confusion as to the chronology there. Once I caught on, however, I was desperate to know what sort of betrayal Althea commits to separate herself so thoroughly from Hannah.

In Althea lies another, smaller strength of this story. Labuskes does very well here keeping the mystery of Althea’s true loyalties a mystery. Despite the fact she disavows the Nazis several times within her section, the looming betrayal we know of from Hannah’s storyline and the general mystery of her alliances from Viv’s storyline really serve the story and kept me feeling as though she were going to turn at one point or another.

What I found so striking about this piece was how open an appeal it is to its audience. It feels as though Labuskes is using these characters to sound an alarm, and I can only imagine how relevant this story and others like it regarding the Nazi destruction of books and general American censorship are going to become in the coming months and years. That this is a queer narrative itself seems to be another layer to its commentary on censorship.

Conclusion:

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone looking to step a bit out of their comfort zone into another genre or want a book that is, ultimately, about books. Labuskes clearly cares so deeply for the preservation of voices within media and, as a first foray into historical fiction, I’d say this is a smashing success. Poignant and relevant, The Librarian of Burned Books is for anyone looking for a little hope in our current political landscape.

I was looking forward to this book, having read this author’s Gretchen White series of thrillers. Unfortunately, at 31%, I was done with this novel. The three separate narratives, and characters, are not compelling enough to keep me reading. The pacing is glacial, nothing much is happening and when I procrastinate picking up my Kindle to continue, I know the book is not for me and it’s time to move on. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity for early review.

The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes is a truly lovely story about a young American author, Althea James, who was invited to Berlin early in the war as part of an artist program, and who fell under the spell of the Nazis for a short time. While there she met lots of people including Hannah Brecht and her brother, Adam, Professor Deidrich Mueller, her mentor, and as it turned out, her handler; Devereaux Charles, a movie actress from America making films for the Nazis; and Otto, who was a friend of Hannah and Otto. There were many others as Dev made a project of showing Althea the other side of Berlin, the side the Nazis would wipe out, given the chance. The story also follows the life of Vivian Childs, who was a reformer and publicist for a New York organization who provided free paperbacks for the American troops fighting the war. The way the three became friends, Viv, Hannah, and Althea, is the brunt of the story, as Viv wages war against Senator Taft and his attempt at censorship.

I try to avoid Holocaust books as I have overloaded on them, but this was a lovely story of love, hatred, betrayal, war, lust, and so much more. The characters were well written and the reader got to know them, even as the timeline jumped around. Watch the dates at the beginning of each chapter. The plot was a good one and effectively told with the different timelines and characters meeting one another as they did. Viv was a crusader; she couldn’t help it. She was so young for the bulk of the book, only 24, but she was a war widow, and a woman struggling in a world where people didn’t always think the way she did, and those that did didn’t choose to fight. Censorship is an ugly word and there is always someone out there wanting to limit what can be read and what can’t, often with the flimsiest of excuses. Viv saw that and went after them and eventually Hannah and Althea helped her. It was a wonderful story. It also introduced me to the concept of Armed Services Editions of paperbacks sent to the soldiers. I had not been aware and what a wonderful idea. All in all, a great read.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of The Librarian of Burned Books by William Morrow, through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #WilliamMorrow #BriannaLabuskes #TheLibrarianOfLostBooks

Buy This Book
I had no experience with author Brianna Labuskes when I picked up The Librarian of Burned Books, but I found the novel’s subject matter intriguing. Covering an underutilized piece of WWII history, the story shows three heroines who fight for something that is doubtless dear to most AAR readers’ hearts – the freedom to write, publish and read the stories that matter to us.

New York, 1943: Two weeks after Viv (Vivian) Childs receives the telegram advising her that her husband Edward has been killed in action, his last letter arrives in the mail. He uses that final missive to tell Viv how much the ASE volumes, portable paperback novels shipped to soldiers overseas, mean to him and the men serving with him. A flame is lit within Viv, and she becomes a champion for these stories, determined to honor Edward by seeing to it that America’s warriors have no shortage of reading material.

Senator Taft, a powerful member of Congress, is waging his own war. In an effort to prevent GIs from voting overwhelmingly for Roosevelt, he has cobbled a ridiculous addendum to the Soldier’s Voting Acting which severely restricts what can be included in the ASE books. Determined to keep beloved novels like The Call of the Wild and The Grapes of Wrath in the hands of those giving their all for their country, Viv decides to sponsor an event that will turn American voters against any hint of censorship. This will pressure Taft to either agree to a change in the wording of the addendum or risk being voted out of office.Her keynote speakers will be the reticent, enigmatic woman who serves as curator of the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books in Brooklyn, and the reclusive popular author Althea James. Now all she has to do is get them to agree.

In 1933, just ten years prior to Viv having her epiphany on book banning, Althea James is experiencing her first real taste of freedom. A guest of Joseph Goebbels’ cultural exchange program, she is entranced by the sheer beauty of Berlin, with its captivating markets, soaring architecture, and fascinating citizenry. A small-town girl from rural Maine, she has never seen anything quite so lovely. She is less enamored with the lavish parties at which she, a successful debut author, is feted and fussed over. However, quite a bit of the sting is alleviated by her escort/liaison to all things German, the dashing, flirtatious, and ridiculously handsome Professor Diedrich Mueller. The glitter and glamor of her experiences and the charm of her partner have Althea giddy with joy and excitement – until she meets fellow American Dev (Deveraux) Charles. An actress, Dev drags Althea to the alternate side of the city – the cabarets where outspoken MCs question the status quo, same-sex couples glide elegantly along dance floors or kiss passionately in shadowy corners, and where she meets Hannah, sister to a man who leads a group of resistance fighters. It is through them she learns what is happening beneath the sparkling veneer the Nazis have been so careful to show her.

Hannah Brecht knows she is fortunate indeed to be spending 1936 in Paris rather than Berlin, but she also recognizes that France is far from a perfect refuge. The City of Lights is too full of Nazi sympathizers and anti-Semitism for the Jewish Hannah to feel safe and secure there. Fortunately, she has found a home away from home at the German Library of Burned Books. Hannah learned through bitter experience that violent revolt and outspoken protesting can be silenced easily by eliminating the dissenters. Her hope is that she and her fellow emigrés can shift the growing tide of fascism in France through the dissemination of ideas – especially those held in the books that the Nazis feared enough to destroy.

According to the back blurb, The Librarian of Burned Books was

Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime – the WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as “weapons in the war of ideas.

The author does a great job of utilizing that ideal in her own work and highlighting the way written thoughts turn into physical actions. I loved how she shows censorship as a battlefield – Viv goes toe to toe numerous times with Senator Taft over what books can and can’t be sent to soldiers while Hannah does her best to ensure her ideals are given equal prominence as those of the fascists. The plot sounds almost existential in nature, but a brisk pace and plenty of action keep the story both entertaining and riveting.

All three of our female leads are go-getters. Viv doesn’t back down even when faced with the formidable opposition Senator Taft is able to bring against her. She’s bright, articulate, and ready to take on anything or anybody that stands in her way. I especially liked how she is able to think her way around her problems – when one plan doesn’t work she almost always has a plan B. I liked her friends, too – they’re supportive, but they challenge her when needed. Althea begins our tale as an ingénue, very wide-eyed and excited about all the world has to offer but gullible as well. As she learns the truth about Nazism and just what she is participating in, she shows quiet strength and resilience which makes her very easy to root for. Her intelligence shines through once the surface of her naïveté has been cracked a bit. Hannah was my least favorite of the heroines, and that was because I found her a bit hot-headed, disloyal, and credulous. She’s a creature more of instinct than thought, sensuous and seductive but coldhearted as well. Hannah believes a lie about someone who deeply loves her with zero evidence, just conjecture, and they to explain the truth to no avail. An event towards the end really cemented my opinion of her, where several people are involved in a conspiracy, and she punishes the one who had participated the least the harshest.

Not loving Hannah meant I wasn’t crazy about her romance with Althea. I spent a lot of time wishing Althea would choose Dev instead, who is fascinating, smart, and sexy without any of Hannah’s more troublesome traits. There is also a love story between Viv and Hale, a man from her childhood with whom she has a complicated history. I struggled with their liaison because what had split them apart in the past showed a callousness and control on Hale’s part I tend not to like in my heroes. Fortunately, the author shows enough good in these love stories to mostly make up for these minor objections.

My only other quibble is that the prose could be a bit purple and frivolous which occasionally felt discordant with the serious subject matter of the narrative.

Those minor issues aside, The Librarian of Burned Books is an excellent WWII novel that sheds some interesting light on an overlooked portion of the era. I would recommend it to women’s fiction fans who enjoy books with strong female leads and rich history.

I really enjoyed this book. The author did a fantastic job of weaving together the stories of three different women in different time periods. Highly recommend!

I did not realize it was a LGBQTxxx book when I requested it. I am simply not interested in those characters, so am not finishing this book. Sorry. The topic of the book sounded great, this one is just not for me.

What an amazing book! Set in three time periods 1933, 1936, and 1944 about three strong women overcoming obstacles. Aletha James, an American, is invited by Goebbels to participate in a cultural exchange program in Berlin in 1933. Her storyline grabbed me right away as my high school teacher (late 1960s) and AFS sponsor Mrs. Audra Bailey wrote in her autobiography about touring Europe in a special cultural program in the summer of 1936. At the summer Olympics she and fellow members of the group were seated across the Olympic Stadium from Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering. I reread the section of her book about this experience. At the same time that Mrs. Bailey was in Berlin in 1936, Hannah Brecht has escaped Berlin and went to Paris where she works in the German Library of Burned Books. The final storyline follows Vivian Childs who is recovering from losing her husband, Edward, who was killed by the Nazi’s. She works with a group, Armed Services Editions, which sends paperback books to soldiers. She is fighting censorship that Senator Taft is trying to censor many titles being sent to the soldiers. I found many issues in this storyline that made me think about some issues we have today.

I would suggest that readers keep a character chart as it is difficult at times keeping names straight. I really loved the Epilogue. I did have a good cry. This is a book that I will read again. My thanks to William Morrow for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

Every time I think I have read enough books set in WWII because there really can’t be another focus, one pops up to challenge that notion, and pulls me back in. THE LIBRARIAN OF BURNED BOOKS by Brianna Labuskes focuses on another aspect I wasn’t familiar with: the Council of Books that provided military with Armed Services Editions of books that were easily transportable and gave them, basically, an escape.
Told from the point of view of three different women in three alternating timelines: Vivian in 1944 New York is fighting to keep censorship out of the Armed Services Editions, knowing firsthand how important the books are to the men at war. Althea, an American author of German ancestry, invited to Berlin in 1933 by the new government, to highlight German accomplishments and, also, with the hope that she will return to the US and talk about how wonderful the new Germany is. Finally, Hannah, in Paris where she fled the Nazi government and works in the Library of Burned Books, hoping to preserve what the Nazis burned. I initially couldn’t figure out how the story was going to come together, but I loved reading and seeing the storylines weave together. I liked “seeing” the different journeys from each narrator’s point of view and watching each grow into themselves and find their path.
Labuskes kept me engaged and turning pages, anxious to find how things resolved. She created three strong female protagonists that weren’t perfect, and accepted that in themselves, but kept fighting against the injustice and the censorship of books.
Thanks to the publisher and Book Club Girls for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the novel. All opinions are my own and freely given.
#TheLibrarianofBurnedBooks #BriannaLabuskes #WilliamMorrow #BookClubGirls

2.75 stars-Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.
I think this book is well written, and although there were a fair amount of grammar mistakes, I didn't mind because it's not the final book. I think Althea and Hannah's storylines were interesting and felt very real, but Vivian's, especially in comparison to the other two, was just not as good. I also didn't love Vivian as a character as much.
I think Vivian's storyline felt more 2d and "this happened then this happened, then she said this and he said that" than the other two. I think it was necessary to have her storyline to tie the others together and to make the book feel more complete, but I wish her storyline had been someone else, or maybe her character but living/doing something somewhere else. Also, honestly, Vivian was just really annoying, which made her hard to read about.
I really liked Hannah and Althea's relationship, and I think it was well written and very raw. I think it's interesting that Althea didn't think the nazis were bad at first, but realistic for her character and many people living there at the time. I wish we'd gotten one more chapter of just the two of them interacting, not just the epilogue, though.
Overall, this book was fine. Just... fine. Not bad, not great. I think I would put it more at 2.75 stars.

Such a great dual timeline novel set before and during WW2 and the importance of books. As a lover of books and libraries I enjoyed this look at how "ordinary" people contributed to the war effort. This book was also a reminder as it states that you can burn books but you can't wipe out their words.

I absolutely loved this book!

We follow three strong women (Althea, Hannah and Vivian) across three time periods (1933, 1936 and 1944) in three countries (Germany, France and the US) throughout this book. All are connected through the power of books and believe in their ability inspire.

Althea is in Germany in 1933 courtesy of an invitiation from Joseph Goebbels to participate in a cultural exchange program. At first she is enamored by Germany however, she quickly learns about the darker side and gets to see some horrifying events.

Hannah Brecht lost everything fleeing Germany (including her brother) and we watch her find meaning working at the German Library of Burned Books in Paris. However, it is 1936 and the finger tips of the Third Reich are never far away.

Vivian has lost her husband through the war and she is passionately working to ensure millions of soldiers are able to receive books through ASE. Her program however is threatened by a politician who wants to enforce censorship and restrict access certain material.

Each storyline was engaging throughout the entire novel! I loved how each woman's story connects to the others and I learnt so much about books and library services during this time period. I wholeheartedly can believe that many men found solace in literature when spending months in rainy cold trenches risking their lives.

I would recommend this book to anybody with an in WW2, strong female leads, the power of books and fiction inspired by fact.

This book was thoroughly well written from beginning to end. It was so hard to put it down once getting started! It was sort of like an adult version of the book “Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken” by Nina Tyndall, with a few more twists and turns. The way that all three protagonists lives linked up was beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. If you are a sucker for historical fiction like me, I highly recommend this book! Everyone needs a copy for their library!

I love historial fiction.
I love accurate historical fiction.
I love sapphic romance.
I love this book.

This book is such an important and timely read for so many reasons. We are seeing the potential of history repeating itself.

Thank you for the ARC. I’m so glad this book is out in the wild now.

On the already crowded World War II historical fiction shelf, author Brianna Labuskes earns herself a coveted spot by finding a unique angle, weaving together the lives of three women: Althea James in 1933 Berlin, Hannah Brecht in 1936 Paris, and Vivian Childs in 1944 New York. The three are united in realizing how books must be protected when threatened by those who fear diversity of thought. Set in the 1930s and 1940s during the ascent of the Nazis, the book depicts how evil creeps in over time, often in small steps. As noted by Brecht, "History is built on moments that feel insignificant. We didn't know that night of the book burnings that the event was anything special." The Librarian of Burned Books carries a powerful punch, with lessons that are just as relevant in today's world.

I was very intrigued by the premise of The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes. The idea of books as a political tool - and as inspiration for soldiers - has long been interesting to me. I was unfamiliar with the ,Council of Books in Wartime, and was very inspired to learn of its existence... and find it relates to modern day censorship in schools as well. That being said... this book did not work for me. I found it hard to read, and difficult to relate to any of these women (except maybe Viv). The three timelines were close enough that it was hard to differentiate the stories. Maybe it was just me, but I would have preferred fewer stories that went more in depth of one woman's experience.

Nevertheless, thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.