Caging Skies

By: Christine Leunens

Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen

An avid member of the Hitler Youth in 1940s Vienna, Johannes Betzler discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa behind a false wall in their home. His initial horror turns to interest - then love and obsession. After his parents disappear, Johannes is the only one aware of Elsa's existence in the house and the only one responsible for her fate.

By turns disturbing and blackly comic, Christine Leunens' captivating and masterful novel examines this world of truth and lies, laying bare the darkest corners of the human soul.

©2019 Christine Leunens (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

An incredibly deep and real story from the heart

The story really feels real and shows so many emotions, I’m only 16 but I can really understand the feelings and my love for ww2 history can really get down and feel as though I’m there because the realism of how they were treated and how they were made to feel. Also being able to see the development of Johannes and Elsa’s personality and their forms of madness, the actual aging of the characters really emphasizes their growth. My outlook of the book really has changed throughout each of the chapters. (Spoilers) after he looses all of his family and is left with only Elsa, it really changed way the story felt. Overall I really feel the story was incredible and felt real. My favorite book as of now.

A well told story

The story is of a young man's coming of age experience in Austria during WWII. The story is well told and I appreciate the narrator's perfection in German language readings- a difficult task to carry on with throughout the book. I do wonder, however, why there are periodic change in vocal tone at, what seems to be, the beginning of each paragraph. A light, whispered tone to start off, then the normal, relaxed voice. That was the only observation I made as it was a distraction. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the book on my days off from working at the hospital. Thanks.

Dark Skies

This is the darkest book I’ve read in years , I hope it was the writer’s intention as she’s succeeded in putting me in a foul mood . I can’t imagine how they made a comedy film Jojo Rabbit from this format , strange minds !

Wow... just wow

I, like many others I'm sure, picked this book up due to Taika Waititi's adaptation "Jojo Rabbit." Without spoiling anything, this book is incredibly well written with the ability to make you feel loathing and sadness for a certain character. Tonally, as well as other aspects, this is not the same story as the movie. It certainly kept me interested, as Christine Linens puts together a story that you want to end, but don't want to step away from. Well done.

A book with two separate personalities

I got this book because of the movie Jojo rabbit which was “inspired” buy this book. I was fully aware that that means it is not a movie about the book, just that the director took the ideas from the book and ran his own direction. That being said I read this in one sitting. It is a book with two distinct personalities. The first half takes it’s cue from “private lives of the master race“ but the second half turns into A drawn out vision of a dysfunctional relationship between two people that you don’t want to know. I’m not sure what the author was planning when she started this book but apparently she decided to take a sharp turn about halfway through and head in a different direction. I am not a literary critic by any means but the best interpretation I can give on the second half of this book is that it somehow represents post World War II Germany but other than that I found it relatively taxing to endure. I found the first half populated by way more interesting characters, but they are all gone before the second half. I am not sure who I would recommend this book to, I would recommend the first half of the book to World War II fiction fans, the second half to Jerry Springer fans. And by the way, The movie is based on the first half…