My Enemy's Cradle - Sara Young

During World War II Cyrla who is half jewish goes to live with Dutch relatives when it becomes to unsafe to stay home. When the Nazi's come though she realizes that her secret is no longer safe. Meanwhile her cousin Annika becomes pregnant with a German soldiers child. Her father enrolls her into a Lebensborn where Aryan mothers can go to have babies that will then be adopted by German families. Annika does not want to go and dies in a tragic accident. In order to save Cyrla, her aunt sends her to Lebensborn in Annika's place.

On the Five Star Scale

Naughty Bits (****) - Annika becomes pregnant out of wedlock and then dies of a botched abortion she tries to perform herself. Cyrla convinces a friend that she loves dearly that if she has to go to Lebensborn she needs to be pregnant to go. She then convinces him to help her make that happen. Cyrla is raped. Later on she connects with Annikas old boyfriend. Some of this stuff I could just skip over but some of it you read before you realize.

Readability (****) - 384 pages. Easy read.

Final notes (***) - I keep saying I'm not into historical fiction and then I just keep reading more and more. The story was interesting. The history was interesting. WWII was so horrible and people were forced into such bad situations. Sara Young took liberties and I'm not sure anyone would be willing to hide in the nest of the enemy like that but I've ready many holocaust journals and it really is amazing what people will do to survive. Again like Esperanza some of the most interesting stuff is in the ending notes where Young talks about the Aryan "breeding" program. Pretty scary stuff.