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A moving historical novel about the friendship between two American teenage girls of German and Japanese descent, who meet in an internment camp in Texas during World War II. A story of identity, loss, and hope in dark times.
The Last Year of the War (2019) is a historical novel by American author Susan Meissner. The story takes place in two timelines: 1943–1945 and 2010.
Fourteen-year-old Elise Sontag is living a quiet life in Iowa when her German-American family is accused of Nazi sympathies. Her father is arrested, and the entire family is deported to the Crystal City internment camp in Texas. There she meets Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American from Los Angeles. Despite their different cultural backgrounds, the girls become inseparable best friends and dream of a future together in post-war New York.
Instead of freedom, both families are repatriated – the Sontags to wartime Germany, and the Inoues to Japan. Elise faces the bombings, famine, and horrors of postwar Europe, while trying to preserve her American identity and the hope of seeing Mariko again.
The novel is a powerful story of friendship that transcends borders, the injustices faced by American citizens during World War II, and the search for home and identity in the chaos of war. Meissner writes with emotion, precision, and without pathos, highlighting humanity in the midst of historical tragedies. The book has been particularly praised for its portrayal of the little-known subject of the internment of German and Japanese Americans. A moving and instructive work about resilience, reconciliation, and the power of friendship.
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