Orphan Monster Spy

Product Information

Kendra: I also loved the novel’s portrayal of a strong, incredibly capable, deeply flawed Jewish girl in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish kid, I grew up reading plenty of books set in this period that depicted Jewish characters as victims and focused on their suffering. Seeing this Lisbeth Salander-like girl spying, scheming, and fighting the way so many real-life girls did at the time felt empowering to me, and I hope will inspire many real-life girls in the present day to fight against today’s white supremacists.

Orphan, Monster, Spy by Matt Killeen | Waterstones

The thing I love most about this book is probably how psychological it is. It's more than a bit horrifying to see the indoctrination of the girls in the boarding school and how the Nazi mindset pushes the girls to be so incredibly cruel to one another. Even more horrifying is seeing Sarah slip from time to time into that mindset; as a Jew, she's one of the people her schoolmates are vowing to destroy, yet there's more than one occasion where Sarah thinks about hurting or even killing someone just because they're weak or unsuccessful. She always catches herself, but these slip-ups are so well written and truly believable as Sarah pushes herself deeper and deeper into her persona of just another 'little monster.'

Like Inglourious Basterds for tweens, this clever YA title features Sarah, a blond, blue-eyed Jewish girl in 1939 Germany.”– The New York Post The whole novel felt electric, and had a very presence that I haven't had from a book in this genre for a good while ( The Color of Secrets and Susanna Kearsley are two that come to mind). I was very interested in the history notes at the end though. That was interesting, well written and the best part of this whole thing. Maybe this author should write nonfiction. A powerful, bleak, and penetrating portrait of an isolated young woman excelling in unimaginable danger

Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen: 9780451478757

By the time I finished the final edits, narrow-minded and spiteful nationalism had been normalised, allowing racism and sexism to flourish online, on our streets, in our media and in our politics. We are, right now, looking at the conditions that created the Third Reich and all it will take, to paraphrase Burke, is for good people to do nothing.What is the best piece of advice they, or indeed anyone else, has given you as a first‐time author? The relationship between Sarah and the captain was interesting and complex. They had no one but each other and in their reliance upon each other, found a kinship neither had expected to find. I grew up in a decade obsessed with the Second World War. It seemed to dominate the books, comics, TV, playground games…everything. However, my mother’s best friend was German and after many sparkly, golden summers with her wonderful, warm and rabidly pacifist family, I found myself unable to swallow the idea that Germans were the war-mad, evil monsters depicted. Yet the more I learned of the Holocaust, the less sense any of this made, as I increasingly identified with its victims. I was an endlessly bullied child, in an era when bullying was considered the fault of the victim by the adults who were supposedly there to protect me. Thus began a lifelong appalled and horrified fascination with the Third Reich, its crimes and the war fought to defeat it. I didn't really know what I was going to get with Orphan Monster Spy , but goodness, what I got was probably better than anything I would've guessed. I recently joined a book club. I’ve always wanted to be part of one, but had never managed to get myself an ‘invite’. I knew of ones that existed, but it always seemed like an elusive secret that you had to be especially asked to be a part of. And I never was. So that was that.

Orphan Monster Spy | Matt Killeen US | YA novel Orphan Monster Spy | Matt Killeen US | YA novel

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The plot was chillingly uncomfortable. A lot of things happens that make you gag. Or chill you to the bone. So it had potential... the story is fairly interesting and I cared about the characters. However, you’d think a story about espionage in WW2 would be way more exciting and while there are some intense parts... I forgot it’s YA so it mostly focuses on things like school, arguing with adults, main character socializing with other young girls, etc. Also didn’t care for the some of the dialogue. The world building and the insight to Nazi time is done very brilliantly, you can see the research done.. It has a lot of German words and I had to constantly search and find out their meaning (because well I didn't know any of them, totally new to me). But they provided a great insight into those times. Would the future Germany have any evidence of its crimes? Would it smell bad and would people even know why?"