I was offered a copy of this book as part of a book tour and asked to give an honest review. This review may contain spoilers.
I think we’ve all had that late night discussion of what we’d do if we could go back in time and kill Hitler. Adiel and the Führer is a really interesting extrapolation of that idea, involving two Jewish Holocaust survivors, the demon king Asmodeus, and a good measure of kindness. What follows is one of the most thought-provoking novels I’ve ever read: what if, instead of killing baby Hitler, you raised him in a gentle and nurturing environment? He has the same experiences that lead to him becoming leader of the Nazi party: surviving the First World War, being rejected from art school, etc., but views everything through a different lens. What kind of man would be become?
I loved the way Adiel’s experiences informed his character. Out of everyone, seeing how the lead up to the war and the plot changed him was devastating. Crafting flesh and blood around names pulled from history books is no mean feat, and Hoffman has done a brilliant job humanising some of the most important figures in the Nazi party – the ability to do so is one of my favourite features of the alternate history genre. Watching Natan fight with his instincts and experience once Adiel and Kaia recruit a Nazi to their side was one of the most nail-biting sequences I’ve read outside of horror. The character work in general is one of my favourite aspects of this book – with one exception. As much as I liked Kaia’s fearlessness and oddity, she did feel fairly one-dimensional when surrounded by this rich of a cast.
Alternate history allows for some deep discussions around exactly what influences specific events. In this case, Hoffman raises questions regarding good and evil, shared responsibility, blame, and nature vs nurture. I love that the genre exists to allow us to explore these topics. A lot of kneejerk reactions to events like the Holocaust are that the perpetrators are straight up evil to the core and, while I’m not disagreeing with that, I like that we can construct a narrative in which we can explore the character and history of these perpetrators using the resources we have from the time period itself, so we can determine what might have led them to make such heinous decisions. This type of work especially is brave and daring for any author to publish, even more so now we live in a time where global slander is possible and a lot of people take offence to headlines without reading deeper and thinking critically, and Elyse Hoffman deserves all the credit for taking that risk and executing it this well.
This book is for people who want a more intense, thought-provoking reading experience, or those who want to know exactly what loss can make a man do.
Check out Adiel and the Führer on Amazon and Goodreads.
About the book
Adiel Goldstein has a good life. Despite the anti-Semitism he faces as a German Jew, he has everything he wants. A dream job as an art professor, good friends, a loving father, and a precious nine-year-old daughter, Kaia. But his life is about to be upended. An old comrade from his time fighting in the Great War is gaining power: a man named Hitler. Adiel’s father insists that they need to leave the country before Hitler becomes the leader of Germany.
Adiel and his family plan to move to America, but before they can even pack their bags, he and Kaia make a shocking discovery. Adiel’s father, Natan Goldstein, is from the future. A Holocaust survivor who lost his family to unspeakable tragedy, Natan was given the chance to go back in time and take the life of Adolf Hitler. But when he failed to kill the future Führer, he devoted himself to his new family and awaited the inevitable.
Natan can’t face the Holocaust again, but Adiel’s unique connection to Hitler means he might be able to succeed where his father failed. Adiel now has a choice: escape as planned and let history repeat itself, or sacrifice everything to stop the Holocaust before it can begin.
Award winning author Elyse Hoffman has crafted a thought-provoking and daring work of historical fiction which will tug at your heartstrings.
About the author
Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. She loves to meld WWII and Jewish history with fantasy, folklore, and the paranormal. She has written six works of Holocaust historical fiction: the five books of The Barracks of the Holocaust and The Book of Uriel.
Writing Werewolf 