Petra Sabine Manning, the author of
Chocolate Rabbit, was born in Germany and moved to the United States. Her book is about a girl who was born in Germany and moved to the United States, and is loosely based on her life, so I figured I would get an authentic view of such a transition from someone who had been there. In the story, Nikki goes back to Europe for a job opportunity and learns to reconcile her past with her present. I don't know very much about German history, especially not from a German perspective, and learned a bit from the book. The book is very well written. I wanted to know more about Nikki, her life in America, and her life in Germany, and more about the chocolate rabbit analogy. I wanted to know more about German history. The book goes back and forth between the past and present, and does it well. It is not a suspense book, but it is suspenseful, and the author did leave us wanting to know more throughout the book.
This is a very good book. Only little things bothered me, and that had to do with transitions during the same time period. For example, we know that the family is visiting various people to pass out presents. However, it starts talking about the next visit, when you don't know they left the first family. It isn't hard to figure out the change of scenery, but it takes a second.
The other thing had to do with people's names. I have a hard time with names in general, even in a book with few characters. And sometimes the sudden name changes (Vati, Karl, and Herr Groebel all being the same person) and the appearance of new characters without warning kept on my toes. I understand that Vati probably means father, and Karl is his first name and Herr Groebel probably means Mr. Groebel, so they do make sense, but they were difficult for me to keep track of them all nonetheless.
I got this book from
Dorrance Publishing, Inc. in exchange for this review.
