Under the Same Stars
Bray has written a novel I hope many teens will read, because it reminds us that the young are our best hope for resisting fascism at any time and place in history. This multi-period narrative presents three pairs of friends—Sophie and Hanna in 1942 Germany, Jenny and Lena in 1980 Berlin, and Miles and Chloe in 2020 Brooklyn—as they face the realities of wars both hot and cold, and pandemics both of germs and of hatred. Everything begins at the legendary Bridegroom’s Oak in northern Germany, a real location where generations of young people have hidden letters addressed to their sweethearts.
A poignant fairy tale links the three narratives, and its teller’s relationship to the three plots remains mysterious until the end. In fact, how the three stories are connected is the most fascinating thing about the novel—but the relationships among the friends are also complex, realistic, and deeply moving. The targeted readers (age 14-18) will have vivid memories of the quarantine online culture that Miles and Chloe inhabit, their parents and grandparents will respond to the late 20th-century teen punk scene that liberates Jenny’s understanding of the world and her role in it, and the Nazi Germany setting that sets off the 80-year chain of events has become depressingly re-familiarized for today’s readers. Symbols of nature—forests, acorns, birds, music, light, and shadow—also unite the narratives.
All three stories are of privileged teens learning that the world is not as secure as they thought it was. This is by no means a new insight, but the way in which each pair finds hope and purpose in friendship and in the stories told by their elders offers encouragement not just to today’s anxious youth, but to all readers.
