Amy Lynn Green: Things We Didn't Say

 By Kelly Bridgewater

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future . . . plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs.

Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility. Most patriotic citizens want nothing to do with German soldiers laboring in their fields, and they're not afraid to criticize those who work at the camp as well. When Johanna describes the trouble to her friend Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers, he encourages her to give the town that rejected her a second chance.

As Johanna interacts with the men of the camp and censors their letters home, she begins to see the prisoners in a more sympathetic light. But advocating for better treatment makes her enemies in the community, especially when charismatic German spokesman Stefan Werner begins to show interest in Johanna and her work. The longer Johanna wages her home-front battle, the more the lines between compassion and treason become blurred--and it's no longer clear whom she can trust.

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My Thoughts:

Things We Didn't Say by debut author, Amy Lynn Green, is an epistolary novel that places in Minnesota during World War II. I adore World War II novels, so I gravitated toward this novel because of the time period. In college, I read a couple of novels written completely in novels. One of my favorite epistolary novels is the novel of Dracula by Bram Stroker. While that story is completely written from Jonathon Harker's journal, it is pretty much the same idea, but in only one viewpoint, not in many different writers. While I know Green wanted the story to be told as a story, I think it missed the part on this. Because the story is completely in letter format, readers don't really get to understand the character's emotions and personalities except what they allow to shine all the pages of their personal writings or from the lenses of other characters. As the letters moved along, readers do encounter a passage of time through the letters and see what is occurring to the characters, but there has to be some conflict or it would not be a story. There were hints of something awful that was going to happen, but I wanted more. I wanted more emotions. I wanted more conflict. It didn't seem that important to the characters either until something awful happen. I don't think writing the story was best delivered in a letter format. It might have been better written as part journal, part story so that way the readers could experience what was happening. The story didn't really capture my attention the way it should. Not that Green is not a fabulous writer. She had the viewpoint down. She had the descriptions down, but I felt like we were missing something in the story. Maybe that is the point hence the title Things We Didn't Say. If that was the purpose, then I guess I caught on pretty quickly. Overall, Things We Didn't Say by Amy Green should have been delivered as an actual novel. Being delivered in letter format is a disservice to the actual importance of the plot line.

I received a complimentary copy of Things We Didn't Say by Amy Green from Bethany House Publishers, but the opinions stated is all my own.

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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