First off I have to say that I always appreciate WW2 fiction that is set in Eastern Europe, and especially in rural Poland, or any of the rural USSR areas that were overrun by the Nazis at the time. The Nazis were brutal in any country they occupied, but they were exceptionally brutal in the east, rounding up thousands of Jewish people at a time, leaving mass graves all over the countryside, and would kill anyone else who crossed their paths too. There are many, many fictional stories based in France or the UK during the war, many stories of the French Resistance, but less based in the east. For this reason alone I was really excited to read Kristin Harmel’s The Forest of Vanishing Stars.

Yona was kidnapped from her German family home in Berlin at the age of two, by an old woman named Jerusza. They lived a solitary, roaming life, living in forests in Poland and the Soviet Union. Jerusza had taken Yona based on one of her premonitions, premonitions that had never failed her before, and taught her everything she knew about survival in the world: languages, foraging, fighting, hunting, building etc. She even taught her to read and write, as well as all of the typical subjects one would learn at school. But when Jerusza dies in 1941, Yona is left to figure out her own place in life. When she comes across a group of Jewish people fleeing the Nazis she has to make a decision that will possibly change her future, and her own ability to survive.

I loved Yona, this wild but loving character who knows how to kill a man with her bare hands, feed a group of starving humans with berries and fish, but has never experienced life in a community. I also loved how the author describes life in the forest: I literally felt like I was there myself, imagining the small huts they created to sleep in the summer, and the bunkers they dug in the winter, the way they foraged for food and herbs, and how Yona uses her knowledge of the forest to help others survive. 

So many people hid in forests in the east during WW2, many of them urban dwellers who had never spent more than a holiday or a few days at a time in the countryside. I think these stories are really important to tell, especially now as most of the people who survived being persecuted by the Nazis are no longer here. Kristin Harmel does a fantastic job of telling a story that is fictional, but entirely based on fact, and I was really happy to read her detailed note at the end of the research that she did, and how she created the narrative. I am usually not a huge fan of love stories within war stories, unless they happen organically, and I feel like Yona’s journey into love and betrayal bonded perfectly with the rest of the narrative. 

If you are an avid reader of historical fiction and WW2 fiction I highly recommend this book!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.