Book Review: Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn

Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn
Length: 320 Pages
Genres: Historical Fiction
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

A special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC of this book!

Trigger Warnings in this book for Death Threats of Minors, Discussions of the Euthanization of Disabled People, Ableism, Racism and Antisemitism, Miscarriage, Blood and Gore

I was really excited to sink my teeth into Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn, which tells the shockingly true and vastly undocumented story of the Lebensborn program, which sought to increase the number of Aryan and "racially pure" German children by having young, eligible women procreate with top Nazi officials. And while that bit of history is undoubtedly interesting, I found myself disappointed with the character arcs, the ending, and the writing.

Told from the three alternating points of view--Hilde, the young power hungry Hitlerite who finds herself pregnant by a prominent married Nazi officer; Irma, a nurse with scars left over from the Great War who has recently broken it off with her sweetheart; and Gundi, a perfect example of Aryan purity and beauty who is pregnant with her Jewish lover's baby and worked with the Resistance--Cradles of the Reich suffers from the lack of development that comes with trying to do too many POVs within such a short book.

Hilde was one of the most interesting and flawed, desperate to become something other than a wife and itching to do her patriotic duty. Unfortunately, she has next to no growth and one of the most disappointing conclusions to a character arc I've ever read. Gundi is undoubtedly the star and the best portrayed, with the last long chapter devoted completely to her harrowing escape from the Lebensborn program at Heim Hochland. Irma changed for the better by the end, though I had doubts how she could be so careless and inconsiderate in the beginning and the make such a 180 by the end. It seemed to not be in her character, to be so selfless, and I didn't feel she had enough happen to her to make her change so drastically.

With regards to the writing, sometimes it was beautiful and wonderfully descriptive, and at other times read like a summary with too much telling and because of that, failed to get an emotional response from me.

I really wanted to like this better, but it felt like the whole book was leading up to a big end, only for it to fall completely flat! Read it for the history, which was obviously well researched, but know that there won't be any satisfactory ending here.